Petraeus' Bed-Time Story: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Doom

[unhappycamper]

http://www.ivaw.org/node/2273





Petraeus' Bed-Time Story: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Doom
by Evan M. Knappenberger | Sat, 12/29/2007 - 1:55am

So my friends in the 4th Infantry are back in Baghdad; the ones that didn't re-up for another tour, that is. And what is the word on the street? Surprise: violence is down.

But what does this mean? What are the implications of this drop in violence? Petraeus and his minions want the world to believe it is because of the surge-ops, but the guys in the S-2's know better. The real story has something more to do with the massive amounts of money being paid to insurgents -- THAT'S RIGHT THEY SAME GUYS THAT KILLED OUR BUDDIES LAST YEAR -- to not attack us this year. More likely, it might have something to do with the fact that we have just armed a corps-sized element of Sunni militia with shiny new weapons and the "next-generation" of equipment and uniforms.

Despite the dashing narratives made up by the master story-tellers wearing stars on their collars, the poor guys in the 2-shops are scared. They know that the present calm is waiting to be shattered like a bottle in a biker bar at 0200. They are scared that, when the shit hits the proverbial fan, we won't stand a chance. They realize that our guys are tired and that we never expected to be into this occupation eyes-deep, while the guys down the road are taking a break and spending all that nice new American money (which, by the way, is worth less and less these days,) on the only thing to buy in Iraq: hot new guns and explosives. They are scared of the militia which is sitting at the kitchen table eyeing them nastily while Papa Petraeus insists they are friendly. "Now, kids, it's not nice to be unfriendly to our neighborly Sunni militia. Why can't you share your allowance with them?" he chides us.

But what the guys in the 2-shop are also thinking is, "where is AQ in all of this? They've been told for years to diligently track down and neutralize all these Al-Qaeda terrorists, but suddenly attacks stop as soon as the militias are sated by our re-directed VA funds. The good 96B analyst knows that zealot AQ are not so easily stopped; and he wonders absently where they could have gone, or if they were even there to begin with.

It looks like Petraeus has gotten caught up in his own bedtime story.

"The evil miscreants have been beat to a bloody pulp by the heroic Americans, children. All we needed was an extra 30,000 troops and 200 billion dollars."

Suddenly some 96B PFC breaks in: "Sir, what happened to the bad guys? Did they leave?"

"No," Petraeus replies, "They're on our side now."

"I don't like this story!" another soldier chimes in. "It doesn't make sense."

"Well, too bad. You can't leave because I'm stop-losing you, and I will be going to the big party soon with all the other retired generals. You children go to sleep now."

Petraeus turns out the lights, and shuts the proverbial door, leaving the story unfinished.

What do you think happens next?



http://www.ivaw.org/node/2273

[TwilightGardener]

1. I caution anyone against buying in to "the surge is working" and "we're winning" BS--

this guy sounds like he has it right--we've been paying our "enemies" shitloads of money. In a decimated economy, money talks even louder than guns. We started paying the "concerned citizen" Sunni brigades in August (which is the very month Petraeus forecast "results" for the GOP Senators in a closed meeting last spring), and the "war" pretty much ended by October. Something smells, and this won't end well--that may not be evident next month or even next year, but we're once again blindly fucking around with a culture we don't understand, and creating unintended consequences and causing even more political tension--all for short term gain, for Chimpy and the GOP.

[Kokonoe]

2. politics is short term, it's the only card chimpy has.