President Bush said:
"It's one thing to attack me. It's another thing to attack somebody like Gen. Petraeus."
Fine. I’ll take the bait, Mr. President. You are the problem. General Petraeus is an honorable soldier doing what he believes is best for the country. In this particular case, he’s running a surge.
Let’s forget, for a moment, that his line of thinking about surges is outside the top-brass mainstream, and concentrate on how you picked him to run this surge.
Flip it
The headline screamed "Clean sweep': Bush replaces top general in Middle East who opposed troop surge"
It was published in Raw Story on January 4, 2007 and began:
In what appears to be a military shakeup surrounding Iraq, President Bush has replaced both the top US general in the Middle East and the top general in Iraq, ABC NEWS is reporting on air.
Just a quick aside, but I love how this article starts. In what appears to be a military shake-up? Was it possible they were just playing musical chairs?
I digress (already).
Admiral William J. Fallon will replace Gen. John Abizaid, US commander in the Middle East, who announced his retirement in December and was expected to leave the post in March. Abizaid was a critic of Bush's efforts to add more troops to Iraq, but the circumstances of his early departure are unclear.
"The president wants a clean sweep," an official told ABC News.
Okay, how can the circumstances of Abizaid’s early departure remain unclear? It says right there that the "president wants a clean sweep." That is crystal clear language. President Bush wanted Abizaid out because he didn’t think the surge would work.
He went on to replace Abizaid with an Admiral of all things!
"Fallon, who is in the Navy, is currently head of Pacific Command; he will be overseeing two ground wars, so the appointment is highly unusual," ABC reports.
It’s not all that unusual, if you’ve run out of generals that agree with you. Okay, he didn’t run out of generals, he had one Gen. David Patraeus in his back pocket.
Since he was a general trained in and experienced in ground wars, as opposed to an admiral, more equipped for battle on the high seas, Patraeus would have to take the reigns in Iraq.
David Petraeus will replace General George Casey, commander of US forces in Iraq. Casey originally opposed the President's plan to add troops in Iraq, arguing it could delay "the development of Iraqi security forces and increase anger at the United States in the Arab world."
And another general bites the dust! Wow! It’s obvious that Bush has no respect for the expert advice given by highly trained and experienced generals, if that advice doesn’t conform to his own ideology and political goals.
He fired two qualified and decorated generals who served their country honorably! By Bush’s own "logic," he attacked the entire military!
"I felt like the ad was an attack, not only on Gen. Petraeus, but on the U.S. military,"
If you can’t attack a general without attacking the entire military, then you can’t fire two generals without attacking the entire military. It's that simple.
But seriously, Bush had to purge before he could surge. He purged the military brass of all who disagreed with the surge, had reservations about the surge, or just thought the surge was a stupid idea that could hurt our military and our country.
Who could blame Patraeus for that? All that ass-kissing little chicken shit did was survive the purge and toe Bush’s line.
It’s Bush who’s calling the shots, not the general. I think that’s why it’s one thing to attack him, and another thing to attack Patraeus.