Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Foreign Policy & News Petraeus Assessment

I have long held the belief that we humans are communal creatures, that we function best in groups of several to several hundred, and that our current cultural paradigms in many ways imprison us just as you describe.

It doesn't have to take a disaster, but it seems only the greatest of disasters can overcome the influences that wall us into our little personal enclaves. Katrina is an example. 9/11 is another example. I think the war in Iraq is an example as well, bringing both supporters and opponents together in a way that would not otherwise exist.

But Vice President Dick Cheney has told us, as recently as October 2006, that Donald Rumsfeld was the finest Secretary of Defense in US history.

What's the problem? Do you Hate America?

So America should sacrifice $ Billions more and thousands more lives, just so President Bush does not have his feelings hurt by being told he is incompetent?

I was in Zacatecas, Mexico about 15 years ago and it was wonderful. After sunset the streets and sidewalks were filled with people talking, laughing, singing, hanging around in the plazas and generally having a wonderful time. I can speak passable Spanish so I mingled too as best as I could. It was really fun. That is also something we don’t see too much of in the US. We tend to get home and secure ourselves in our nests. Maybe colder weather has something to do with that but I am sure culture also plays a part.

And a lot of us feel our nation has been hijacked by Bushco et al and that has gotten us so frustrated and angry. We feel are hurtling along on a hijacked plane heading straight for the towers desperately trying to find a way to grab the controls. Cheney and gang are at the controls laughing and shouting “them fools and ants, bwaaa haaa haa! Full throttle ahead!!” We really do need to regain the controls of our hijacked nation jet and also mingle more to regain our humanity. Am I asking too much?

Thanks stereoman. And boy are you right. The people we hired to take care of these things are the biggest bunch of chickens I've ever seen -- well, aside from those valiant few who have stepped up to the impeachment plate.

Wonder what will become of us.

Oh, I know Ken. I see what you're saying for sure. I can't tell you how many times I've thought about Jimmy Carter trying to get nuclear energy off the ground, and the sweater thing, and how nobody took him seriously. Him and a bunch of other people who've been trying to get our attention for a long time.

I don't think the people who insist we remain in Iraq have nearly the honest frustration that you have about our dependency on oil -- they're not saying, "We just don't have any choice, because the American people just won't get off the dime and drive hybrids and ride bicycles." I think they have an arrogant, cavalier outlook about this. It's basically screw everybody, we want Iraq's oil and anybody who doesn't like it can lump it.

Me, I think if we had $100 a barrel oil we'd be in enough pain to get off the dime. I think it's a big mistake to wait around for us to wean ourselves off oil first, and then disengage ourselves from the someone else's oil we decided to commandeer.

It's all about cutting to the chase.

I visited my daughter in Paris last spring, and it was very similar. There is an enormous, healthy community life. It was during the world cup when France was a serious contender. You would hear these roars from the cafes and the bars -- it was the whole country, in unison, cheering on their team. Every TV in Paris was tuned in to it at the same time -- when Z made a move, they all cheered together. We just don't have that here. We could also walk all over Paris at midnight, completely unescorted, in quiet and safety. Please don't get me wrong -- I am fiercely loyal to America, especially when I'm there. Maybe I'm just so sad about what has happened to us since 2000 that I get melancholy too easily.

And I just wonder if we can just grit our teeth and wait this administration out. I really wonder if it's not making a deal with the devil that we will come to regret more than we ever could have guessed we would.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/25/AR2007062501599.html?hpid=topnews

Read it and weep. What can Petraeus add to this?

One can infer from this and other reports that the military planners, not unexpectedly, continue to think about the situation in Iraq in terms of warmaking rather than in terms of peacemaking. The Baker-Hamilton Report began to touch upon a point that Dennis Kucinich and a few other forward thinkers have been trying to articulate for some time: unless and until we change this paradigm, progress will elude us.

Why do we let these failures continue to shape the most expensive and futile policies of the 21st Century? We already know their paradigm is doomed to utter futility! Why are we wasting money killing Iraqis and destroying their properties, and then expecting these actions to somehow be helpful in ameliorating the insurgency? If those same funds were used to employ Iraqis in rebuilding their electricity, water, and sewer systems, and to reconstitute their oil refining and transport even in the absence of a revenue agreement, we would see the insurgency instantly deflated.

We already know, from years of experience in our own country as well as others worldwide, that the two principle causes of large-scale deadly conflict are poverty and despair. Neither of those causes can be addressed by surging military troops.

The military would respond that none of your suggestions can be undertaken because the insurgents have been, and will continue to disrupt such projects with attacks and suicide bombers etc.

It's really difficult to get an accurate assesment of situations in Iraq because reporters lives are in such danger. I also cannot fail to think that if this war were never undertaken at all and all the resources we have spent there were to have been put into alternative energies how different things would be.