The Undeserved Loyalty of A Heroic Military Officer

Considering then-Senator Obama’s attempts to cause General David Petraeus to fail in Iraq, President Obama and America are truly fortunate that Petraeus is a dedicated patriot who is willing to put his country first.

After Obama fired General McChrystal, Petraeus agreed to step down from his position as head of the military’s Central Command and take over command in Afghanistan.  Petraeus is one of two principle authors of the Military’s counter-insurgency strategy and tactics manual.  He was appointed by President Bush to command the Iraq operation at its darkest moment.  He changed the strategy and tactics in Iraq and led the troop surge that ultimately succeeded in subduing the violence and training Iraqi forces to take over responsibility for their own security.

To understand how fortunate Obama is, and what a true patriot and hero Petraeus is we have to go back to January, 2007 when the Iraq surge began. The political-media establishment was unanimously negative when President Bush ordered the surge.

Then-Senator and Presidential Candidate Obama could have seized the  opportunity to be an idealistic, visionary leader in the cause of Liberty, and American success.  Instead, he deferred to the cynical dogma of those in his party who wanted failure in Iraq, to vindicate their position, that “Bush’s war” was an irreversible disaster. Then-Senator Obama fell back on the simplistic chants of the anti-war Left in a TV interview:

I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.

A few days later he said:

We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality — we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don’t know any expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.

In July, 2007 as the intense combat phase of the new strategies and initiatives was in full force in Iraq, and the troops deserved unqualified support from the home front, Senator Obama appeared on The Today Show and said:

My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we will not see a different report eight weeks from now.

Obama repeatedly tried his best prevent success in Iraq, first by introducing legislation that would have aborted the surge just as it began, and by twice voting to withdraw funds for the Iraq operation, even as US troops were engaged in high stakes, daily combat.

Fortunately for the troops and for America, President Bush prevailed over Senator Obama and his allies in Congress and America is now positioned to withdrawal from Iraq in victory, leaving behind a new, functioning democracy and U.S. ally in the heart of the middle east.

It’s a sad injustice that must, some day be made right.  Obama, a petty politician seeking to gain the favor of the obstinately anti-Bush Left suffered no consequences for attempting to undermine the troops and the war effort.  Yet General McChrystal, an national hero loses his command for complaining about incompetent political appointees.

By the way, Vice President Biden, who was also skewered in the Rolling Stone article, is just as guilty of undermining the troops and the war effort as Obama.  Here is one of his anti-surge rants:

The surge isn’t going to work either tactically or strategically,  Tactically it isn’t going to work because … our guys go in and secure a neighborhood, but because we don’t have enough troops, we have to turn it over to the Iraqis, and they can’t hold it or won’t hold it.

As the world now knows, General Petraeus’ counterinsurgency doctrine did work by stationing American troops in Iraqi villages and city neighborhoods until the Iraqi police and military were trained and ready to take over.

If the Afghanistan operation succeeds, and Obama and Biden take bows, someone should remind them of how much they owe, and how little they have paid.