MoveOn – Full Reverse on “General Betray Us”
Obama has ousted McChrystal and propped up Petraeus as our new can-do man in Afghanistan. Great. I’m sad to lose McChrystal, but I understand that he needed to go. And I’ve always like Petraeus – though not everyone has. Some may remember the left chanting “General Betray Us” back during the Bush years. They were ultimately rooting for defeat (the home team), but that never surprised me. Also not surprising, is that MoveOn.Org lead the charge against Petraeus, calling defeat before we were done. Here’s an image of the ad with text provided below. Give this a read, and tell me if it sounds familiar:
“General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was “tangible progress” in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.” And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, “We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress.”
Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That’s because, according to the New York Times,the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don’t count. The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you’re shot in the back of the head — not the front. According to the Associated Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we’ve been there. We’ll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won’t hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.
Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops. But we won’t hear what Americans are desperate to hear: a timetable for withdrawing all our troops. General Petraeus has actually said American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.
Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.“
Of course, Michael Dobbs with The Washington Post ripped that piece to shreds here. But it’s a nice propaganda piece while it lasts.
What interests me more is that MoveOn has decided to scrub its pages of any reference to ol’ Betray Us, presumably in light of the fact that their Great and Beloved Leader, President Obama, has hand-picked the good general for success in Afghanistan. *Oops! Start the back-pedaling!* Luckily, I was able to find some screenshots of the page, so we can still take a look.
Again, it’s not surprising, just really disappointing that an organization that some rely on for news (yes, I personally know people who trust and rely on MoveOn.Org) is willing to flip-flop with the changing of political winds, and that they would sacrifice their core values – hide what they deem to be true – for their Dear Leader. It’s also ironic that they become guilty of what they accused Petraeus of in the ad they’re hiding. They’ve “cooked the books” and are covering for the administration they like. I suppose they have no true convictions, just an insatiable lust for Democrats in power. How sad.
Related: General McChrystal’s Interview – Should He Stay or Should He Go?
