On Feb 5, 2008, at 1:09 PM, Chris Gehlker wrote: > > On Feb 5, 2008, at 9:03 AM, Charles Bennett wrote: > >> Our fucktards do not run full page ads in the N.Y. Times calling a >> US General "Betrayus" in the middle of a war. > > Even though I have become a fan of Patraeus, I have to take issue with > this. He was clearly acting as a politician at the time and was fair > game. When you consider all the 'embolden the terrorists' language > coming from the other side, the Betrayus quip wasn't even that far out > of bounds.
He absolutely was fair game for disagreement. Even so, the image that MoveOn projected was one of treason, not reasoned disagreement. They didn't win anyone over and worse for them, the messenger came under more scrutiny than the message. The press was all over them and the sweetheart rate that NYT gave them and THAT became the story. Someone needs to give them some basic PR lessons about never letting the messenger over shadow the message. When you accuse a highly decorated (he has two silver stars) soldier of betraying his nation "us" you had damn well be ready to back it up with facts or you are going to put off the rest of the nation and make yourself look really, really bad in the eyes of the 'red state' folks and every veteran regardless of political affiliation. > > > The other thing that bothers me was that 5 of our troops were killed > in Mosul *after* the commanders had said that Mosul was to be a > completely indigenous operation. What the fuck were our people doing > in Mosul? Soldiers have to go where the bad guys are. Even completely Iraqi run ops are going to have a handful of advisors for the foreseeable future. They are the only ones that can call in arty and air support. > The role of US forces in Iraq is to hunker down and stay > alive so we don't have to admit we lost. COIN doctrine says that they have to take 'and hold' areas instead of the old, "sweep and withdraw" (that wasn't working) I've been expecting casualties to actually go up, not down, as they force themselves into areas previously held by AQI, but I think (hope) that AQI is in deep shit at the moment. I mean, how desperate do you have to be to use women with downs syndrome as remotely detonated bombers? If that isn't the bottom of the barrel, it's pretty close. OBL, said that, when he justified the WTC attacks, that people would naturally back the "strong horse". If he is right, AQ and AQI in particular are not looking like the strong horse at the moment, and people on the ground know it.. John (Sgt Major) will be back in theater after Feb 9th, so I'll get regular intel after that about his view of what is going on on the ground. He's not one to sugar coat or mince words if he doesn't like what he sees. Chuck _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters Join us in #ramblingwaffles on irc.23x.net
