First of all, the ad was targeted at an individual not the entire army. In fact, the add went out of its way to praise the army and its soldiers. It asked a very pertinent and timely question.
Based upon lie after lie that has come out of the White House. Based upon rosy scenarios that held no resemblance to the actual outcomes that Pentagon and Iraq Generals have given over and over. The exact replication of Rovian talking points between the two. The question of whether Gen. Petraeus was going to tell the truth or spin White House lies was pertinent.
The fact is that Petraeus did exactly that. Pointing to Anbar but acting like the rest of Iraq didn't have a massive uptick of sectarian violence. Constanly lying about Al Queda being the group that is killing the most American soldiers when it is the sectarian Shia militias, followed by Sunni militias, followed by Baathists from the old Iraqi regime and then finally Al Queda (as recorded by the NIE report, the GAO report and just about every non-hyper partisan Republican think tank organisation that has researched Iraq's Civil War.) He even tried to invoke the 9/11 Sadaam connection innuendo.
When he strayed from the White House talking point he was dressed down for it and told to recant. He answered Sen. Warner's, a Republican, question on whether fighting the War in Iraq will make American's safer. Gen. Petraeus caught off guard by the question answered that he didn't know. During the next break, Petraeus received an angry phone call from the White House and on his first question after the break he ignored the question and recanted his previous statement.
When all through the 3 Congressional hearings he stated over and over again that the White House was not telling him what to say. MoveOn.org's add was dead on both in title and text (which if you had bothered to read was quite reasonable.) Gen. Petraeus did betray us. He disgraced his uniform by lying to Congress, our elected representatives, and therefore lied to every American citizen by proxy. Not just once, not by accident but over and over again.
His charts were never designed to show a true representation of the violence. Rather than use the more accurate representation of violence from the previous year's month he took the most violent month and compared it to the last month. He didn't show that the August violence was higher than any previous August since the Iraq War started. He didn't show that the drop in violence was actually lower than the percentage drops between July and August of previous years. Instead he used an apple and orange comparison. Comparisons that were designed to tell a lie, that the "surge" was working.
Well, the "surge" is not working. Yes, there are less insurgent attacks in Bagdad. There were less insurgent attacks in Faluja (twice) after the Army went in and rooted out the insurgents. Then when the Army left (withdrew) the insurgents came right back in and the violence went back as if there was no time when it was not there. So far, nothing anyone has produced implies that it won't occur in Bagdad just the same. In fact, there is the same non-planning incompetence that will state that no one could have forseen that the insurgents would simply return when the "surge" ended.
Anbar was showing the same progress when the "surge" started. It was doing so, because they either killed or ran out nearly all of the Shia already. Neither the Shia nor the Sunni like or want Al Queda in Iraq. To both they are just foreign intruders trying to force them into forming a government that they don't want. Meanwhile, the U.S. is giving the tribal sheiks in Anbar money and weapons as bribes not to attack American Soldiers that, for the most part, aren't in the province to begin with.
Finally, recalling the extra forces dedicated to the "surge" is not a withdraw. A "surge" is a short burst not a sustained action. It was understood from the beginning that the soldiers assigned to the "surge" would be returning. To suddenly act as if that is a withdrawing of forces is at best disingenuous and, especially with the way it was repeated over and over again by Gen. Petraeus, a flat out lie.
So in the end, Gen. Petraeus did betray us. He betrayed his position. He betrayed his uniform. He betrayed the Army. He betrayed Congress. He betrayed the American People and he betrayed his country.