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The Spectacle Blog
The AP gets a sneak peak at forthcoming biography of David Petraeus and finds some news:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Four-star general-turned-CIA director David Petraeus almost resigned as Afghanistan war commander over President Barack Obama’s decision to quickly draw down surge forces, according to a new insider’s look at Petraeus’ 37-year Army career.
Petraeus decided that resigning would be a “selfish, grandstanding move with huge political ramifications” and that now was “time to salute and carry on,” according to a forthcoming biography.
Author and Petraeus confidante Paula Broadwell had extensive access to the general in Afghanistan and Washington for “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus,” due from Penguin Press in January.
The salute-and-carry-on instinct is somewhat understandable, and we’ll have to see the quotes in context to fully assess Petraeus’s reasoning, but it’s hard not to wish that he’d gone ahead and resigned. He’s right that the political ramifications would have been huge, but they might also have been salutary.
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More Blog Posts by John Tabin
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/12/29/petraeus-almost-resigned-over
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Derek Leaberry| 12.29.11 @ 10:11AM
Petraeus supports the Obama-Admiral Mullen policy on homosexuals serving in the military so he should be encouraged to resign rather than face charges. As for Mullen, a Republican president should send him to the brig in Norfolk to await charges of treason.
Dan| 12.29.11 @ 11:29AM
The Navy officer corps is bad, and if the balloon goes up over the Taiwan Straits, that officer corps is going to get exposed, and I fear exposed big time.
No other service makes me nervous about the national security of the country as does the Navy.
Fallon, Mullen, Blair, ----------- Sestak!
And each of these guys reached flag rank!
God Almighty help us, but we need somebody to overhaul State, the Navy, NASA needs to be cashiered and a new genuine space exploration agency needs to be established.
The economy......... Where do we begin on that one.
The Fed.......... Another one in desperate need of overhaul.
Who here thinks that Jennifer Rubin's beau is equal to any of this?
Ed| 12.29.11 @ 10:35AM
But he didn't. Same with most of the military's leaders. I don't like this policy, I don't like that policy, the honorable thing to do would be resign but that would affect my pension. As long as we maintain diversity.
Dan| 12.29.11 @ 11:34AM
The officer corps of the services prefer to think of themselves as nobly unselfish, nobly apolitical, when in fact, they've been highly politicized.
Look at how rapidly the services caved on having flamers rammed down their throats.
Who resigned?
Look at how the services caved when women were rammed down the throats of the various service academies. The first time West Point's coveted FIRST CAPTAIN post went to a female cadet, the whole thing was rigged!
Utterly rigged.
Are the service academies meant to produce the next MacArthur, the next Nimitz and Spruance, or are they meant to produce the next SESTAK?
What is the purpose of the service academy, but to fight and win war, how did various cultural influences get imposed upon them?
This country has so lost its way, so wandered down a path of intellectual confusion, that I don't know if it will ever find its way back............
JP| 12.29.11 @ 2:11PM
Coming to the nightmare near you: the first openly lesbian JCS.
Dan| 12.29.11 @ 4:06PM
I don't know of a woman who could hang in a bar room brawl, and in a geek bar at that.
Some women, some might observe, are capable of hanging. To be sure, with the right training. But then again if you take your typical geek, train him, spend the exact same amount of time training and developing him................... then what?
I once recall, I think it was Carson, asking Chris Everett about who she could play with in the pros. She just looked at him like he was a nut, and observed that most men tennis players in the Big Ten would trounce her, and then she remarked in a line I won't forget, "you don't understand the power of the men's game."
Playing virtual video games and pulverizing the enemy at arm's length is one thing, but it won't last.
Heretofore we've been racking up easy kills against dirtballs in the Mideast, many of whom are hopped and drugged up. Don't you remember Moshe Dayan's quip when he was asked for advice on winning the Vietnam war, "I'm fighting arabs...."
But hey, why question political correctness?
Why question much of anything you've been told........
People who chirp about the ability of women to hang in combat really don't know what they're chirping about.
Just think of Jessica Simpson up in some trench line on Bloody Ridge, overlooking Henderson airstrip, holding her position with the rest, with rifle buts and shovels.
Or think too of the experience of those women who have been captured by our enemies.
Do you know whether they had been thoroughly raped or not? I know which women had been gang raped.
Ed| 12.29.11 @ 11:00AM
Just remember, as honorable as we know all generals are, that a scummy little cretin like Wesley Clark and a backstabbing liar like Colin "How dare you say I voted for Obama because he's black" Powell rose to the top of the food chain. I feel sorry when I see the warriors and then realize who they are being led by.
Dan| 12.29.11 @ 11:36AM
Go read Marine Maj General Bernard Trainor's book on the first gulf war, titled THE GENERALS.
If you want some chapter and verse on how contemptible Colin Powell can be, and how much Cheney had to ride herd on him just to get him to do his damn job!
Smirking Weasel| 12.29.11 @ 11:09AM
Actually, the lifelong government bureauhack realized he'd have to look for a real job if he up and ran off.
Larry the Cable Guy| 12.29.11 @ 12:26PM
He could get a job writing at The Weekly Standard. He could be useful for Lil' Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes would salivate over licking Petraeus' boots.
PattyMor| 12.29.11 @ 2:25PM
What about General Casey's absolute insanity after the Ft. Hood shooting. We need to preserve diversity. Hell, we need to preserve our way of life and our lives!! All our institutions have been corrupted from the military, education, media, Hollyweird, music, and some religions.
PS. Don't people find it just a bit odd or irregular that the rabid Left that ran the General BetrayUS ads are the same Left that put the General in at
CIA? Or don't these people think.
Mike 3/505| 12.29.11 @ 11:16PM
GEN Petreaus doesn't get it both ways. If he disagrees with a policy enough to put it in a memoir, then he should have had the stones to resign. That's why he gets paid the big bucks.