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Give Petraeus a Chance - How about a moratorium on 2008 politics for a bit? (Victor Davis Hanson)
National Review Online ^ | February 06, 2007 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 02/06/2007 11:12:44 AM PST by neverdem

The haggling over various resolutions and nit-picking (inasmuch as no one is seriously going to cut off funding) the surge is surreal. Whatever critics think of its rationale, it is clear that something dramatic is going to shortly transpire, most likely a last-ditch, go-for-broke effort to secure Baghdad that deserves the support of all Americans and our representatives.

Surely if Congress can confirm General Petraeus without a dissenting vote, it can at least give this gifted officer a period of grace to allow his counteroffensive to proceed without pre-judgment — especially when thousands of American troops will be on the offensive in a matter of hours and in greater danger as all eyes turn to Baghdad.

We hear ad nauseam that there is no "military solution" to Iraq, followed by platitudes about political compromises, trisection, fill-in-the-blanks diplomacy. But, in fact, only a military blow to the insurgency will allow the necessary window for the government to gain time, trust, and confidence to press ahead with reform and services. And this is as it always has been in wars. After Cold Harbor Lincoln was at an impasse — his twin workhorses, Grant and Sherman, stymied and stalled.

Only when Sherman cut loose from his supply lines and surrounded Atlanta (taken on September 2, 1864), along with Phil Sheridan's progress in Virginia (September - October), was Lincoln's political agenda of emancipation and reunification of the United States back on track. In World War I, the British government was tottering until General Haig withstood the German spring offensive of 1918 and gave the necessary respite for the surge of American troops to allow the allies to go back on the offensive and give the politicians the credibility to demand a German surrender.

After the fall of France, Dunkirk, losses in the Atlantic, Greece, Singapore, and Tobruk, Churchill's soaring rhetoric was wearing thin and had earned him a motion introduced calling for censure; only the subsequent successes in North Africa, in the Atlantic, and in the air above Germany gave him renewed stature to press the case for absolute resistance to Hitler. General Ridgeway did the same in Korea, mostly through personal magnetism and insistence that his demoralized subordinates cease their defeatism and go back on the offensive. Had he failed, Truman would not have the capital to save the south. Abrams, and the so-called "Christmas bombing," almost pulled off the same in Vietnam.

So now General Petraeus is trying to shake-up our forces to believe that they can and will so damage the insurgents that the Iraqi security forces and their government will gain confidence to join the offensive, and the shell-shocked citizens, sick of violence and glad for a last-chance reprieve, will support the efforts to establish calm in Baghdad.

Again, our elected representatives can at least call for a moratorium of a few weeks on self-serving bombast and blatant pre-2008 political maneuvering — when so many Americans are now risking their all to take on the jihadists for the future of Iraq.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: iraq; petraeus; vdh; victordavishanson

1 posted on 02/06/2007 11:12:48 AM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem

We're in about year 8 of campaign season and yes it's becoming extremely tiresome. Sadly 9/11 gave us a chance to relax for a while.


2 posted on 02/06/2007 11:14:43 AM PST by cripplecreek (Peace without victory is a temporary illusion.)
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To: Tolik

Ping


3 posted on 02/06/2007 11:16:49 AM PST by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: cripplecreek

I heartily agree with you, though it is probably year 15 of the permanent campaign invented by the clintons. It is vapid and exhausting, based, as it is, on propaganda.


4 posted on 02/06/2007 12:48:20 PM PST by ClaireSolt (Have you have gotten mixed up in a mish-masher?)
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To: neverdem

is PATRAEUS Greek?


5 posted on 02/06/2007 12:48:55 PM PST by hsmomx3
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To: hsmomx3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus

is PATRAEUS Greek?

I entered PATRAEUS netherlands into YAHOO. wikipedia confirmed my memory.

6 posted on 02/06/2007 2:57:06 PM PST by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: neverdem
Were you aware that Dr. Bill Frist actually saved Petraeus's life? Came in off of the golf course and operated on the General.

As a doctor, I thought that you might find this interesting.
7 posted on 02/06/2007 3:58:07 PM PST by Coldwater Creek (The TERRORIST are the ones who won the midterm elections!)
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To: mariabush
Were you aware that Dr. Bill Frist actually saved Petraeus's life?

I think I might have read that story. I read WaPo's 3 part story about Petraeus in 2004. It's mentioned at Wikipedia. He was shot accidently in the chest during a live-fire exercise according to Wikipedia. He was antsy to get discharged from the hospital and did maybe 50 push-ups to show that he was fit for discharge, IIRC.

8 posted on 02/06/2007 5:13:33 PM PST by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: neverdem; Lando Lincoln; quidnunc; .cnI redruM; SJackson; dennisw; monkeyshine; Alouette; ...


    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out.

Links:    FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson 
            His website: http://victorhanson.com/    
                NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp

New Link!   
http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/

9 posted on 02/08/2007 5:38:20 AM PST by Tolik
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To: neverdem; Tolik

10 posted on 02/08/2007 5:45:35 AM PST by MEG33 (GOD BLESS OUR ARMED FORCES.)
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To: MEG33

brilliant!

thanks


11 posted on 02/08/2007 6:16:20 AM PST by Tolik
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To: Tolik; pookie18

;)Just downloaded it from pookie's toons earlier!


12 posted on 02/08/2007 6:20:03 AM PST by MEG33 (GOD BLESS OUR ARMED FORCES.)
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To: MEG33
FYI, the cartoonist, Allan Ryskind, is editor-at-large at HumanEvents.com.


13 posted on 02/08/2007 6:31:34 AM PST by pookie18 ([Hillary Rotten] Clinton Happens...as does Dr. Demento Dean, Bela Pelosi & Benedick Durbin!!)
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To: pookie18

Thanks, pookie!


14 posted on 02/08/2007 6:36:23 AM PST by MEG33 (GOD BLESS OUR ARMED FORCES.)
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To: neverdem
Asking a Democrap to stop uttering self-centered, anti-American slogans is like asking a fish not to swim.

It's what they do.

15 posted on 02/08/2007 6:36:47 AM PST by Edit35
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To: neverdem

The democrats will never allow, much less admit a success in Iraq until we are completely out of the country, and President Hillary Clinton can say she ended the war, and the success is only because the democrat party stood up to the warhawks in the Republican Party...

I know this is a bunch of hooyee, but some of it has to eventually ring true...


16 posted on 02/08/2007 10:05:46 AM PST by stevie_d_64 (Houston Area Texans (I've always been hated))
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