MY SAY: A GREAT GENERAL? OH PULEEZ!
The way the pundits are swooning over the resignation of General Petraeus, one would think he was the second coming of something between Oliver Cromwell and Curtis LeMay. Pardon me, but his campaigns in “Surgeistans” are total fiascoes. Iraq and Afghanistan are surging towards Sharia with increasing violence every single day. While climbing the ladder to general he spent most of his time at West Point, first as a “pre-med”. He graduated in 1974, joined the infantry ascending the ranks, Petraeus worked in many different capacities and for several different units within the Army.
During the 80s he was mostly involved in education….at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School where he got a Master’s degree and Doctorate in International Relations, and then headed back to West Point.
In 1991 he was promoted to Lt. Colonel and commanding officer with the 101st division where he was wounded….in friendly fire…when a fellow infantryman discharged his M-16 by mistake. At the age of 46 he was promoted to Brigadier General, and soon after sustained another injury, again, not in combat, but in training when his parachute failed. He then served in Bosnia as part of the NATO Stabilization Force, as both Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations and Deputy Commander of the U.S. Joint Interagency Counter-Terrorism Task Force. For his efforts there, he was promoted to Lieutenant General in 2004. Petraeus was made a full general in 2007.
His military “doctrine” was a clone of the “heart and minds” campaigns which were such failures in Vietnam, and his counterinsurgency operations enacted rules of engagement which crippled our forces.
In politics he was an absolute dud, once famously declaring that the Arab/Israel wars were responsible for the anti American sentiments of the Moslem world, culminating with his famous theory that the infamous video about Mohammed inspired the Benghazi attack.
He waged no brilliant campaigns, was no leader of men in combat, and apparently got lost and terminate his non illustrious career in a boudoir.
Comments are closed.
