| Bush Leans On Petraeus as War Dissent Deepens General Set Up as Scapegoat, Some Say By Thomas E. Ricks Almost every time President Bush has defended his new strategy in Iraq this year, he has invoked the name of the top commander, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus. Speaking in Cleveland on Tuesday, Bush called Petraeus his "main man" -- a "smart, capable man who gives me his candid advice." And on Thursday, as the president sought to stave off a revolt among congressional Republicans, he said he wanted "to wait to see what David has to say. I trust David Petraeus, his judgment." |
Whether on purpose or not, Mr. Ricks reminds everybody of the bozodom right off. Of the inveterate bozodom, one should say, since even before Floridagate 2000 that was the way Little Brother talked -- as if the United States of America were of interest primarily as it figures the biography of Wunnerful Him. Normal pols with troubles as bad as the Big Management Party's have become, troubles that they hoped DP could deliver them from, would praise DP directly and try not to be noticed themselves. Not Master Bozo, however. What the remnants of the aggression faction need to know is mainly that the Dr. Gen. has been vouchsafed the favor of Kennebunkport-Crawford dynasty trust. With that in hand, how shall he fail? (Remember how M. Vladimir Putin of Muscovy won the Bozo Trust Prize too, once upon a time? For that matter, so did poor M. al-Málikí at brave New Baghdád, heaven help him!)
The weirdness and indecorum of this syndrome are even worse than they look at first glance, since as a matter of fact Little Brother of Yayle and Harvard Victory School almost certainly does not trust Dr. Gen. David Petraeus of West Point and Princeton in any political or violence-professional sense of importance. That is to say, the Bozo Trust Prize is so priceless a boon that even a fake copy of it is now to save the day.for the militant GOP! (Presumably even in theory this shtik only works as long as the militant elephants don't spot the fakery. Ideally there ought to be clinical trials: does real K-C dynastic trust save more patients than placebos feigned to be K-C dynastic trust? Considering the exact nature of the patient, however, the suggestion is no doubt unworkable.) [1]
But let's hurry on to the scapegoat bit, shall we?
| Some of Petraeus's military comrades worry that the general is being set up by the Bush administration as a scapegoat if conditions in Iraq fail to improve. "The danger is that Petraeus will now be painted as failing to live up to expectations and become the fall guy for the administration," one retired four-star officer said. Bush has mentioned Petraeus at least 150 times this year in his speeches, interviews and news conferences, often setting him up in opposition to members of Congress. "It seems to me almost an act of desperation, the administration turning to the one most prominent official who cannot act politically and whose credibility is so far unsullied, someone who is or should be purely driven by the facts of the situation," said Richard Kohn, a specialist in U.S. military history at the University of North Carolina. "What it tells me, given the hemorrhaging of support in Congress, is that we're entering some new phase of the end game." |
Hmm. That's not the weightiest evidence ever assembled, Mr. Ricks: one probably envious and certainly anonymous violence pro, one shot at Lexis-Nexis, and then Dr. Kohn, who paints himself into a rather peculiar corner. His credentials in Mil. Sci. are evidently supposed to reinforce a purely political judgment. How exactly does that gimmick work? The worthy educationist seems to be a babe in the woods about Pol. Sci.: fancy anybody supposing that Dr. Gen. Petraeus "cannot act politically"! It is a shame that Field Marshall Douglas MacArthur had to fade away before hearing that pleasantry.
Mr. Ricks must be devoted to his bassackwards approach, however, because he promptly does it again:
| Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson, a skilled strategist, concluded that the president is sending the message that Iraq is "a purely military problem." The lesson, he said, may be that "the military action and the political objectives are parting company." That is, he explained, the United States may make some progress by fighting insurgents and training Iraqis, but that won't affect the Iraqi leaders' ability to achieve reconciliation. |
Though his qualifications seem no more suitable than Dr. Kohn's, Gen. Gregson at least talks rather better sense. [2] I don't think Little Brother and the Big Party are in fact doin' what he attributes to them, but it would be rather good (political) strategy on their part if they were. The very fact that the Party perps have never yet done anythin' as rational as that in the entire course of their aggression and occupation policies seems to me a strong argument that they aren't doin' it now either.
In any case, Gen. Gregson conflates real politics (Kennebunkport-Crawford politics, maybe even Reid & Pelosi) with the native "politics" of Green Zone collaborationists in a way in which Televisionland and the electorate are not at all likely to do. K. Rove is far more competent in his own sphere of Party twistification than his boss is at anythin' and would therefore certainly have vetoed that plan if he ever heard of it. If you suppose that Neocomrade Rove was bypassed and that Little Brother is in fact tryin' to signal that there is nothin' out there in the GOP-blessed Land of Peace and Freedom but "a purely military problem," you must surely grant that he is doin' it very badly indeed, even by his own low standards:
| ... Our strategy is built on the premise that progress on security will pave the way for political progress ... advance the difficult process of reconciliation at both the national and local levels ... We are starting to take the initiative away from al Qaeda -- and aiding the rise of an Iraqi government that can protect its people, deliver basic services, and be an ally in the war against extremists and radicals. |
That's from yesterday's weekly propaganda broadcast . In a pinch, one might maintain on the basis of it that at this point Little Brother's sole interest in GZ collaborationists is to enlist them in the Big Management Party's Kiddie Krusade or Long War -- "be an ally in the war against extremists and radicals" --, but that cannot be what Gen. Gregson or Dr. Gen. Petraeus would refer to as "a strictly military problem." [3]
Our own view remains that Little Brother and Big Management are not now, and never have been, interested in any sort of strictness, that they'll take anythin' whatsoever or its exact opposite as long as K. Rove can dress it up as Success and Victory for Boy and Party without seemin' clinically demented to Televisionland and the electorate. That strategy would seem to leave Dr. Gen. Petraeus quite a lot of leeway: the cowpokers don't give a hoot what he does as long as he damwell does it for 'em and does it soon! One might accordingly speak of "a strictly Petraean problem," but that's rather different from what Gen. Gregson actually said.
Meanwhile, the Ricksian backhand approach culminates in a doozy:
| When Bush and his aides shift military strategy, they seem to turn on the generals on whom they once relied publicly, said Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon official. ... Shinseki ... Casey ... Pace .... "This is an administration that wants to blame the generals," Korb said. |
One can be grossly unfair even to H.R.H. the Prince of Darkness! Needless to say, the bozos of Big Management do not at all want to blame their violence pro hired hands, what they want is plainly that there should be nothin' in sight that requires to be blamed on anybody at all. Unfortunately they haven't a clue how to get there from here, so from time to time a certain amount of blamin' becomes unavoidable, and, given a choice between speakin' of technical failure and admittin' to a BigManagerial (or so-called "executive") failure on their own part, they invariably prefer the former. The spooks have been victims of this Boy-'n'-Party self-protection instinct quite as much as the generals have. [4]
Consistent right down to the bottom line, Mr. Ricks concludes with yet another Mil. Sci. professional doing amateur politics:
| A senior officer in Iraq said [that in September] Petraeus will point toward several kinds of progress, such as improving security in Baghdad and the shift of tribal alliances in Anbar province away from the insurgency. But others note that those points were made in the interim report released by the White House on Thursday, without much effect on the political debate. "I am sure in September he will report some progress, but probably not enough to stop the tide to get out now," predicted Brian Linn, a military historian at Texas A&M University. |
The whole scribble seems to be working up to a conclusion that Mr. Ricks finally decides is so improbable that it would be better not to mention it. In some parallel universe, however, one not too far removed from our own, the militant GOP extremists will take advantage of the Petraeus-Crocker report on the ever-victorious Surge of '07™ to finally pull a kissinger and wash their hands of Peaceful Freedumbia once and for all, protestin', in the best approved Pontius Pilate manner, that it was "a strictly military failure" and therefore not really their fault at all . . . .
The neo-Iraqi victims of Big Management should be so lucky! It's far too good to be true and belongs nowhere but in the Memoirs of Rabbi ben Trovato, unfortunately.
____
[1] President Carter made himself look pretty silly with a mere two words, "Trust me!" George XLIII Bush in effect revises that to "Trust my trust!" The loss in brevity is more than compensated for by the vast increase in silliness.
To be sure, JC was even more so than Dr. Gen. Petraeus, probably the "smartest President ever" judged purely on a scientistic IQ basis. After being almost alway the cleverest person in the room all his life, JC's "Trust me" properly meant something like "We haven't time to argue about it, but you'll soon see that I am right!" Master Dubya is not at all like that.
[2] Both Mil. Sci. "authorities" have every right to their opinions as subjects of Crawford, naturally. on the same basis as you and Mr. Bones and I do. However, that cannot have been why Mr. Ricks contacted them.
[3] Master Dubya's good ol' buddy David is notoriously a neotheorist of MacNamaran "counterinsurgency," a Mil. Sci. intellectual who as good as denies that such a creature as "a strictly military problem" could even exist in an environment like the bushogenic quagmire. That does not prove that the chickenhawk Party bozoes think so too, of course, but it does leave open the possibility that they might.
[4] Citizen Korb is not quite what I expected him to be, i.e., not a Clinton appointee. Au contraire:
Mr. Ricks rather unfairly shoots out of the bushes when he does not give his readers any inkling of those credentials.
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