I am really baffled why MoveOn.org and libs are focussing on Petraeus. It shows their real motivation in their agenda.

1. The surge is working. Harry Reid admits it.

2. The area where progress has been very slow is the political side of Iraq. That presentation to congress on the political side was made by Ambassador Crocker, yet you hear virtually nothing about Crocker.

MoveOn.org and the libs are too busy reliving their juvenile memories of Vietnam War protests to actually understand and focus on the real problems of Iraq. All they want is to bring the troops home now; just like in the 70's. Peace and flower power.

"2. The area where progress has been very slow is the political side of Iraq."

Yeah... unfortunately, the political side was the side that mattered.

Remember your Clausewitz; if the political objectives are not secured, military victory is meaningless.

That said, I agree that MoveOn.org has shown very poor form through all of this.

How did you feel about the Swift Boat adds, book, and TV movie showing John Kerry as a coward.

What about the Republicans at the convention wearing purple band aids to insult and dishonor every soldier who ever won a Purple Heart?

Did you think that was OK?They picked out the points that Patraeus made in support of the surge and responded with statements based on reports by GAO report 9/4/07, NIE report 8/23/07, Jones report, CSIS, 9-6/07 that showed his points to be inaccurate.

Yet all the opposition was to the military surge prior to it happening. The political only surfaced as an issue to detract from the overall picture.

Is this supposed to be some sort of moral high road defense?

Like most libs you believe the koolaid as in:

TRUTH IS ABSOLUTE; DO NOT BE MISLED BY FACT!

Reid has admitted the surge is working by stating that military success in Iraq is not enough. You are not even listening to your own.

"Yet all the opposition was to the military surge prior to it happening. The political only surfaced as an issue to detract from the overall picture.

Negative. The entire point of the surge from the beginning was to provide additional security in Baghdad so that Shia and Sunni factions could reach a settlement in peace. This has not happened, nor does it look like it will in the near future. Therefore, the political goals of the military operation were not achieved. Therefore, the military victory is meaningless in the long run.

It sucks, but it's true.

I don't care if the Iraqis start building white picket fences around their houses, making apple pie, and buying Chevys. WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE IN IRAQ. PERIOD. What don't you get? It's an ILLEGAL OCCUPATION, and it's resulted in the deaths of about 500,000 innocent Iraqis. Let's recap, shall we? Iraq didn't attack the United States, didn't possess WMDs, wasn't connected to al Qaeda, wasn't involved in the 9/11 attacks, didn't ASK US to invade their country, didn't ASK US to depose their president, didn't ASK US to destroy their infrastructure, didn't ASK US to unleash a chaotic situation that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, and didn't ASK US to "spread democracy" to Iraq and the greater Middle East. Furthermore, any violations by Iraq of any post-Gulf War resolutions were EXPLICITLY required to be referred to the U.N. Security Council for a vote, a vote that would then determine which type of action--military or otherwise--should be taken in response to those violations. In early 2003, the United States explicitly BLEW OFF this vote, because George Bush et. al knew that the Security Council would not authorize military action against Iraq. That means that the United States BROKE INTERNATIONAL LAW when it invaded Iraq. It means that George W. Bush is responsible for the murders of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis through his invasion of a country that had NOTHING TO DO WITH terror attacks against the United States. I hate to break it to you, pal, but YOU'RE STUPID. You're a DUPE. Which is exactly why you voted for George Bush.

Maybe somebody at MoveOn.org fell in love with the "General Betray-Us" pun and was successful in getting the execs to pick their ad over the "Ambassador Crock-O-Shit" alternative.

I thought the ad was silly and ad hominem and didn't add any useful information to the public debate. So it was like most political ads these days.

I would hope you are grown up enough to know that BS statements like 'the surge is working' OR 'the surge is NOT working' are just that; BS statements.

The surge DID reduce the violence. IF one believes the purpose (note the word 'IF') of the surge was to allow for political reconciliation that the surge as a mission is a failure since even if there was NO violence the Shitties and Sunnies will NOT be making peace.

Now lets be honest here; The REAL mission is to leave a stable Iraq that is NOT run by Islamic Fundies. Unless the Shitties and Sunnies can make a political deal this mission will fail.

Since the surge is NOT helping Shitties and Sunnies 'get along' (in fact I would say reduced violence REDUCES the chance they will cut a deal), I see no reason for a surge.

I was and am absolutely opposed to any attacks on military decorations, et. al.. I was repulsed by the "purple band aid" stunt pulled by Republicans at the convention, and questioning the legitimacy of Kerry's purple hearts and Silver Star.

Now that we've dispensed with the side-issue, let's look at the fact that betrayal is a VERY serious issue -- I fervently disagree with anyone who accused pacifists and war opponents of hating the US, wanting defeat, hating troops, etc.. However, I still don't see a defense of MoveOn in this. If the best you can do is "It's no worse than the purple band aids" then you've admitted wrong, as far as I'm concerned.

Petraeus [Bush's Grant (sic)] had been built up for months as the man who would deliver the true goods on Iraq. When it became clear that he and Crocker were just Bush's water boys, MoveOn’s ad correctly went after the inflated messenger boy.

We should all be pointing and giving the finger to the press who once again in lieu of doing their job looked for the easy, dramatic handle--thus the incessant misquoting of the ad so that they could present the story as a personal one, not one that analyzes the facts and questions raised by the ad. (And this indictment ranges from Fox to Frank Rich.) Little wonder that a celebrity distracted public, concerned with Britney's decline, Spector's Wall of Weirdness, and O J' s memorabilia, should throw the Petraeus tempest on that easily sold emotional pile and give it just as much serious thought as who the next American Idol will be.

MoveOn's problem and challenges are the problems and challenges of a democratic culture. MoveOn chooses to respect the public's intelligence. They accept nuance and the difficulties of communicating nuance to a public that spends most of its time at the mall. But, unlike most bloggers, pundits and ALL politicians, they are willing to take on the job of educating the public and really listening to the public while they attempt to lead it.

When things don't work as smoothly as a scripted and invitation only Bush rally, organizations such a MoveOn are labeled and attacked as, contradictorily, elitist and naive.

Is this the end of the MoveOn ad affair? Not really. Petraeus's generously funded Fighting Insurgency Wars experiment in Iraq will fail. Those 25 Senators who voted against the “Stand At Attention While I Tell You a Pack of Lies” resolution will be remembered as leaders with backbones. Hillary, not my candidate, did herself some good on this vote.

What slays me is the claim that for proof the SURGE (tm) is working we are pointed (by Bush's photo-op there) to Anbar province. Remember DEMOCRACY? Over three thousand Americans have died and something like ten thousand of them have been maimed for life in order to bring the boessings of Democracy to Iraq. That was the STORY after the whole WMD thing fell through. Well, our new allies in Anbar, like our allies in Helmand, are not committed to democracy, big d or small d. They are hereditary tribal rulers. That's Feudalism. That's what all our dead kids, not to speak of the folks in New Orleans who might still be alive if their Guardsmen had been where they were supposed to be, not in some stinking desert supporting George Bush's vanity war.

What Petraeus said, speaking very, very carefully, is that the SURGE (tm) is not a success. He didn't say it's a failure, but he didn't say it's a success, either. That's all Bush got for his months of build-up. And given Petraeus' history of overselling the war (MoveOn was right on the money, but the title was too cutesy-poo and beside the point, and it's all anyone will remember, now), his unwillingness to press teh sale at present says a lot about where the war is going -- right into the toilet.

Is that Ranger says "The surge is working. Even Harry Reid says so."

It's so wrong on so many many levels. I don't even know where to start...

I never really understood all the hype about spreading democracy in the Middle East.

Democracy is nice if it exists in a system that also includes the rule of law, a constitution that protects a core set of rights for everyone, a free market economy, some type of social safety net so that nobody starves to death and a few other things along those lines. Democracy by itself is just mob rule.

People not killing people is meaningless. Don't forget the mother's marches in northern Ireland which helped curb the violence. You know the not killing might just become contagious.