More behind the scenes manipulation by the Democreants in Congress. Dem staffers at the behest of the Democrat leadership allowed Code Pink protesters into the hearing to shout absurdities, while Democrat panel members attacked the integrity of General Petraeus, and by proxy, all military members. To think that battlefield judgments and questions of loyalty would be colored by US politics is absurd. It goes against everything that is ingrained and taught to US officers. The New York Slimes, and Moveon.org fired another salvo for the insanely liberal by printing “General Betrayus” in an advert. What do these morons truly believe is the motive for us being in Iraq? Money, oil, power? Possibly, in the political arena where congressmen and women play. But Generals are unique creatures; required to dip into the cesspool that American politics has deteriorated into… generals get muddy. But by the very act of Congress that made him or her an officer, he or she is condemned by those same congressmen as having another agenda other than the security of the United States and its National interests. Securing the freedom of a new republic for Iraqis and bringing home soldiers safe should be the mandate.
Petraeus spoke truthfully about the gains and setbacks since the “Surge”. Politics (both Iraqi and US) has failed them. Not the military action, but the failure of politicians in Iraq to come to an agreement on how to govern the country.
Democratic Republics are sometimes born overnight, but are never secured overnight. There is continual push and shove by those who would have freedom and those who would take it away. Iraqis have been under the rule of a dictatorship for decades and are now thrust into an arena with which they are unfamiliar. Old tribal loyalties outweigh the rule of the majority. A similar drama is being played out in Afghanistan. Religion... Islam is the knife in the back of Iraq's new republic. While Muqtada al Sadr's Mehdi army has called a truce, the Iranian-supported Shiite insurgents and outside fighters from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Jordan, will continue to foment violence within Iraq until the people of Iraq are tired of the fighting.
The Iraqi media is being told that it's the coalition forces killing Iraqi civilians, when it's almost always Arabs killing Persians killing Arabs. After a while, the people of Iraq may begin to see that it's not advantageous for them to quarter these murderers and terrorists and show them the door. You can't have freedom when according to the Koran certain people are either second class citizens (dhimmi), infidels, who must be killed, or taxed jizya if they want to practice their own religion. A government based on this kind of inequality is either doomed to failure or will be exploited by the killers and murderers who flock to this Islam and grasp it's more militant and extreme views.
