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Retire the last of the Clinton mushhead Generals and get some real American fighting men in there.

I have the dishonor of having my retirement papers signed by Clinton, a stain that I will never be able to blot out. At the same time, don't believe for a minute that the neocons were any better at this. Wolfowitz and Feith and even Cheney were just as bad at ensuring the promotion of conformist yes-men (just a different sort of conformity), and it took the disasters of the first 3 years of Iraq to get these ideologues out of power and force putting in someone like Petraeus in the first place.

It is Winston Churchill who once said "You can count on the Americans to do the right thing - after they have exhausted every other possibility." Well, we exhausted every other possibility in Iraq.

Yes you’re right. We can all say Saddam was a bad guy and must be taken out. After the successful invasion in 2003, we f***ed up the occupation. We should never had dismantled the Iraqi Army. Rumsfeld was to blame for this for trying to go to war on the cheap. Gates is now having to fix a whole a lot of things and finally we have the right General to get the job done in Iraq.

Do you have an opinion on the following questions:

1. Was general Petreaus' summons to Washington to attend this board deliberately made a public affair to signal to the ranks that Petreaus is the man?

2. Was it done to signal that counterinsurgency will be the emphasis in the Army in the future and, of course, the path to advancement?

3. Is this 360° rating system an unalloyed good; can you foresee situations in which it might lead to indiscipline in the ranks?

4. Would you include former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld as a man who sought only yes men?

5. Do you think that Rumsfeld is privately for or against this new emphasis; in other words do you think that Rumsfeld was for or against an army focused on counterinsurgency?

6. Assuming Petreaus can stamp these new brigadiers with his philosophy, will this have any long-term effect on the normally unalterable momentum of the Pentagon?

7. If changes can be effected in the Pentagon which are really meaningful and lead to an ability successfully to wage the war against terrorism, will they be strong enough to withstand a Clinton presidency?