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Petraeus Blues--Good Man Feelin' Bad
for release 09-11-07
Washington DC
by Lightning Rod
The Poet's Eye observed the Petraeus hearings before Congress. I hate to see a good man put his life on the line for a bad cause. It's the epitome of Greek tragedy. Dedication to duty is an admirable thing but it sometimes must surrender to circumstance.
General Petraeus seems like a competent man and certainly a consummate bureaucrat, as all modern military officers must be. My observation is that it takes about five hundred politicians, a battalion of bureaucrats, three generals, and a platoon of subordinate officers to put one real soldier's boot on the ground.
Military bureaucrats are always fond of charts and maps. The Petraeus presentations before Congress were illustrative of this. His statement, which he was obliged to deliver three separate times in two days, once before the House hearing and twice before the Senate hearings, resembled a corporate presentation. I was wondering why he didn't have a Power Point presentation in there somewhere.
Public Congressional hearings are often dog and pony shows. And it's hard to tell the players without a program. You don't know if the witnesses are the stars of the show or if the committee members are.
In the House hearing, much ado was made about the MoveOn.org advertisement in the NYT which gave Gen. Petraeus the nickname General Betrayus. While this was a very clever and effective pun if you are looking at it from a marketing and advertising point of view, I don't think it was quite fair. The man seems to be trying admirably to do his job even if it is an impossible job. His job is to sell a lost and bungled cause in the hope that we can maintain a colonial presence in Iraq.
Petreaus proved to be cool under fire, a true soldier. He suffered a torturous two days of political interrogation by the Congress that would have raised eyebrows had it happened in Abu Graibe prison and he only gave up his name, rank and serial number. I know I couldn't have endured the nine hour sessions without a deck of cigarettes, a beer and a box of Depends. Petreaus has my respect as a good soldier. However, his message does not have my respect. But then, I don't sign his paycheck.
The purpose of this much ballyhooed series of Congressional hearings was to plausibly defend the miserable failure that our invasion and occupation of Iraq has been. Much like in Greek theater, we all knew the outcome before it started. The object of the whole exercise was to stall for more time so that the plunder of Iraq by corporate predators at the sacrifice of our young men and women and our treasure could be continued.
Consider this: the estimated cost of this war is close to a trillion dollars. That money is not vanishing into thin air, it is going into someone's pocket. But it's nothing new that fortunes are made from war.
In most of the wars in our history we were fighting nations. In the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 and the Spanish American War and WWI and WWII, we were fighting nations who ultimately surrendered. Who will surrender if we win this war, this mythical war on terror? Will Bin Laden himself sign the document? Will the treaty bear the signature of every insurgent or sectarian group or the purple finger prints of 4 million displaced Iraqis? I doubt it. It's about as likely as signing a treaty in the War on Drugs.
The Poet's Eye sees General Petraeus as an honorable man as most of his interrogators from the Congress have expressed. Too bad his cause is not as honorable.
Yes I know how it feels when you're feeling so doggone blue
I'm not singing the blues I'm telling you the hard luck I've had
I'm not singing the blues I'm telling you the hard luck I've had
The blues ain't nothing but a good man feeling bad--Jimmie Rodgers
