In New Role Petraeus Works for Afghan Win

[unhappycamper]

In New Role Petraeus Works for Afghan Win
October 29, 2008
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review|by Carl Prine and Salena Zito

Fresh from the Baghdad battlefield, Gen. David Howell Petraeus is a blur amidst blurs in the bowels of the Pentagon, his staffers preparing new strategies and reassessing old ones for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's urgency to the bustle, because on Oct. 31 the former commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq takes over U.S. Central Command and inherits the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, too.

Whether that Halloween promotion eventually earns him a trick or a treat depends on how well he steers what those in uniform call "Centcom." From its headquarters in Tampa, Fla., Petraeus' unified command bestrides 20 nations from Africa's Red Sea waters to the Asia's Himalaya Mountains. He will oversee the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan while he monitors potential trouble spots in Lebanon, Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere.

Under Centcom's sands are three out of every five barrels of the globe's oil. Across her seas roam Somali pirates and what Iranian leaders boast are suicide-bomb boats. The command confronts bumper crops of heroin poppies, disgruntled Muslim masses who produced the 9/11 terrorists and three wobbly democracies under siege in Beirut, Baghdad and Kabul.

And in five days it all belongs to the son of a Dutch sea pilot.

"People have asked, 'Why did you agree to do this? You thought you had a lot of rocks in your rucksack in Iraq, and now there's more being added, considerably more being added to that rucksack,' " said Petraeus, 55.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/in-new-job-petraeus-works-for-afghan-win.html?col=1186032369115

[ShortnFiery]

1. General Petraeus should *RETIRE quietly* when Obama takes the reigns. He's dirty - real dirty.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/gen-petraeus-and-a-high_b_94458.html

In Iraq, Col. Westhusing worked under two generals: Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, and Petraeus, then a lieutenant general. But Bryce continued: "By late May, Westhusing was becoming despondent over what he was seeing." When his body was found on June, a note was found nearby addressed to Petraeus and Fil. According to Bryce it read:

"Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. --You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff--no msn support and you don't care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied--no more. I didn't volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more. "Trust is essential--I don't know who trust anymore. Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs . You are not what you think you are and I know it."

Twelve days after Westhusing's body was found, Army investigators talked with his widow, who told them: "I think Ted gave his life to let everyone know what was going on. They need to get to the bottom of it, and hope all these bad things get cleaned up."

Since last March, when I wrote a story about the apparent suicide of Col. Ted Westhusing in Iraq, I had believed there was nothing else to write about his tragic death. But in December, I talked to a source in the Department of Defense who met Westhusing in Iraq about three months before his death. The source, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, was investigating claims of wrongdoing against military contractors working in Iraq. After a short introduction, I asked him what he thought had happened to Westhusing. 'I think he was killed. I honestly do. I think he was murdered,' the source told me. 'Maybe DOD didn't have enough evidence to call it murder, so they called it suicide.'"

[UnrepentantUnitarian]

2. That "Afghan win" can't be military at its core...

Hopefully Petraeus understands that. Others throughout history have learned that lesson in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. No, any hopes of "winning" there must be based in the culture itself...commercially, agriculturally, and educationally...IMHO.

[ShortnFiery]

3. Even if you believe that Petraeus is NOT corrupt (I think he is), promoting him creates an HUGE

conflict of interest. This guy is not "John Wayne." There are other General Officers as brilliant as the "illustrious" General Petraeus who can step in and do the job.

But Ronald Reagan's assistant secretary of defense, Lawrence J. Korb, says Petraeus shouldn't have been considered for the Centcom post because it creates a "conflict of interest."

"You're asking him to do something that's beyond the capacity of anyone," said Korb, a senior fellow of the Center for American Progress. "The mission in Iraq is close to him personally. He is closely tied to Iraq, and now he must objectively weigh the mission in Iraq against the mission in Afghanistan?

"It's unprecedented that we have asked him to do that."

[Dhalgren]

4. Gen. MacBetrayus, the Empire's General!

Betrayus of Baghdad! Betrayus of Kabul! The man is as big a narcissist as was MacArthur and as big a blood-soak criminal as was Westmoreland. Obama should "retire" Field Marshal Betrayus at once, but he probably won't...

:puke: