General Petraeus is very, very clever, which is quite different from stating that he is the brilliant tactician he has been described as. He figured if he hadn’t actually been given the mission to “win” the “war” he found himself in, he could at least look good in the meantime. And the truth is he did a lot of good things, like conceiving of the idea of basically buying the loyalties of various factions in Iraq. But they weren’t the kinds of things that win wars. In fact, they were the kinds of things that prolong wars, which for the general had the useful side effect of putting him on ever grander stages so he could be seen doing ever grander things, culminating in his appointment last year as the director of the C.I.A.
Greg Mitchell on media, politics, film, music, TV, comedy and more. "Not here, not here the darkness, in this twittering world." -- T.S. Eliot
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Phony Man
Strong op-ed at NYT by Lucian Truscott IV, well-known writer from famous military family, on "Phony hero" Dave Petraeus and the "phony war." Excerpt:
is author of a dozen books (click on covers at right), ;He was the longtime editor of Editor & Publisher. Email: gregmitch34@gmail.com Twitter: @GregMitch
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