Free Republic

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

From the air Sunday morning, this looked like a city restored. You could see paddle boats skimming the pond at Zawra Park, and go-karts and waterslides. And in every direction, new schools and soccer fields and bustling warehouses -- all taking shape under the canopy of the new Iraq. But down below, it turned out to be a morning from hell. Terrorists exploded two massive car bombs at the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad provincial administration, killing more than 100 and wounding more than 500... Around the time the bombers struck, I was flying over the city in a Black...

General David Petraeus wakes badly wounded soldier from comaA couple of years ago, MoveOn.org published a defamatory insult that called General David Petraeus "General Betray Us" and said he was at war with the truth. We remind our readers that Barack Obama solicited and accepted the endorsement of Eli Pariser's anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic hate group. Watch this YouTube video to see the man whom Eli Pariser insulted. Lieutenant Brian Brennan was maimed by a terrorist's explosive device, and he suffered a head injury so severe that doctors assumed that he would never recover. General Petraeus came to see the wounded...

After Obama took office, it became necessary to define a war-fighting strategy in Afghanistan. The most likely model was based on the one used in Iraq by Gen. David Petraeus, now head of U.S. Central Command, whose area of responsibility covers both Afghanistan and Iraq. Making sense of the arguments over Afghanistan requires an understanding of how the Iraq war is read by the strategists fighting it, since a great deal of proposed Afghan strategy involves transferring lessons learned from Iraq....

I wish he was wrong. As personalities, the syntax-mangling Ike and the self-consciously intellectual David Petraeus don’t have much in common. But politically, they’re in a parallel position. Today’s GOP has a right-wing base that can damage Obama, but none of its favorites have a prayer of winning the White House. The reason is that just like the Republican right of the early 1950s, which kept insisting that the New Deal constituted socialism (or fascism), today’s conservative activists have not accommodated themselves to some basic shifts in public mood. Over the past couple of decades, the American people have grown...

Politics: Democrats say Rush Limbaugh is running the Republican Party. Better Rush than George Soros, who is running the Democrats. At least Rush believes in freedom, capitalism and letting you keep what you earn. The cover of the March 7 issue of Newsweek shows a picture of conservative icon Limbaugh with a piece of tape covering his mouth and the word "Enough!" So much for disagreeing with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it. Voltaire could never be a contributor to Newsweek

In October of 2001, the U.S. military and Northern Alliance drove the Taliban from power in a matter of days. Eight years later, the Taliban is coming back into power and - let's face it - our military is retreating. Not to the discredit of the great men and women of our armed forces, mind you. Despite Washington's best efforts, they have held off the Taliban for this long. They have done everything that they could do and then some. But why are we losing Afghanistan? I could name several reasons, but one in particular is our misguided philosophy for...

CORNWALL — Thirteen-year-old Megan Gagnon is killing time outside her middle school on Thursday afternoon, waiting for police and federal agents to finish a sweep of the building. This is a big deal. Gen. David H. Petraeus is about to arrive. He grew up here, she says, graduated from Cornwall High, then West Point. “Now he runs Iraq and Afghanistan.” Gagnon's dad is in the Army too, deployed to Iraq for the past nine months. She told him, over a webcam, that Petraeus was visiting on Thursday so the town could name a street after him. The band was going...

October 9, 2009 Young Hamlet’s Agony Will he listen to Emanuel and Biden or Petraeus and McChrystal? Charles Krauthammer. The genius of democracy is the rotation of power, which forces the opposition to be serious — particularly about things like war, about which until January 20 of this year Democrats were decidedly unserious. When the Iraq War (which a majority of Senate Democrats voted for) ran into trouble and casualties began to mount, Democrats followed the shifting winds of public opinion and turned decidedly anti-war. But needing political cover because of their post-Vietnam reputation for weakness on national defense, they...

When GEN David H. Petraeus ’74 comes to West Point to attend his 35th Reunion this afternoon, he also will attend a ceremony for the re-naming of about a mile of County Route 107 in Cornwall, NY, currently known as Quaker Avenue, in his honor. GEN Petraeus was raised in Cornwall-on-Hudson, graduated from Cornwall High School, and then entered West Point, just eight miles away. Now Quaker Avenue connects to Highway 9W and has exit signs that are very prominent, but a more interesting section of road to re-name in the general’s honor would have been a lesser-known stretch of...

War Strategy: When Bush and Petraeus proposed the surge in Iraq, Democrats demanded that the general testify before Congress. So why has the Senate blocked a similar invitation to our commander in Afghanistan? Those with memories longer than the 24-hour news cycle recall that in the dark days of the Iraq War, David Petraeus was summoned to Washington to explain the surge strategy that would eventually lead to victory in Iraq. Democrats hoped for a show trial. MoveOn.org took out a full-page ad in the New York Times labeling the commanding general of our efforts in Iraq "General Betray-us." Then...

ARLINGTON, Va. – President Barack Obama late last week asked for and received from Defense Secretary Robert Gates a copy of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s resource request for executing the war in Afghanistan. But the request has not been introduced into the White House’s war sessions that began last week and continued on Wednesday. The document is the Afghanistan war commander’s follow-on to his earlier strategy assessment, and reportedly contains options calling for increases of 10,000 to 40,000 more troops. The Pentagon for weeks had said that the request would not be considered ahead of the strategy. As reporters in Washington...

Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, said that the situation in Afghanistan needs “sustained and substantial” commitment. His statements echoed the assessment made by the senior U.S. general in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal. However, Petraeus, in his comments Tuesday to a convention of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA), refused to detail what a substantial commitment means and whether it would translate to sending more troops into Afghanistan. McChrystal was criticized for airing his views on the Afghanistan war in a public forum as President Barack Obama works on a strategy to tackle growing security...

Warfare: As the commander in Afghanistan tries to get President Obama's attention on troops, it's political players like Vice President Biden who have his ear. Yet the military has a record of success. Biden has only blunders. By sending in 21,000 more troops and adding $44 billion to the war budget, the president erased doubts early in his term that the goal in Afghanistan was victory. Even more impressive, he appointed Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a successful Iraq War commander who excels in unconventional warfare, to lead the fight. But the doubts have returned. McChrystal has merited just two encounters with...

Petraeus Has Prostate Cancer By ERIC SCHMITT Published: October 5, 2009 WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of American military forces in the Middle East, received a diagnosis of early-stage prostate cancer in February but has undergone “successful” radiation treatment to deal with the illness, according to a statement issued late Monday. Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of American military forces in the Middle East, at the Newseum in Washington last week. He received a diagnosis of early-stage prostate cancer in February. General Petraeus, 56, who as head of the United States...

War On Terror: From Gettysburg to Fallujah, no-nonsense leadership has proved the key to victory in war. President Obama has chosen a new top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. This is Obama's war. This is his general. During the campaign, candidate Barack Obama said Afghanistan was the right place to fight what is now called an overseas contingency operation. At first glance, with his choice of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to take over as the top U.S. commander there, he may have picked the right man to fight it. McChrystal is a special ops guru, a former head of the Joint...

WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the face of the Iraq troop surge and a favorite of former President George W. Bush, spoke up or was called upon by President Obama “several times” during the big Afghanistan strategy session in the Situation Room last week, one participant says, and will be back for two more meetings this week.

Deciding the right strategy begins with asking the right question. When the White House was waltzing McChrystal around trying to find a way to talk him out of his request for more troops, I questioned the wisdom of applying the Petraeus counterinsurgency strategy which worked in Iraq -- temporarily -- to Afghanistan. Where, because the nation is 50% bigger, and in there is no significant Afghan uprising against the Taliban as there was in Iraq against al-Quaida, the strategy couldn’t work. Since then, it’s become clear that the White House will try to compromise McChrystal’s request for 40,000 more troops...

Did you hear about Bill Clinton and Sophia Loren's breasts? I'll get to that in a moment. First, Afghanistan. The war was there in the news cycle -- for what seemed a few nanoseconds on Monday -- after The Washington Post published an unclassified version of the assessment of the war submitted to the Pentagon by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces there. As I've noted elsewhere, though McChrystal claims victory remains possible in Afghanistan -- if a new strategy is adopted, additional troops and civilian resources are deployed, and the Afghan government and military...

This Washington Post story captures the stark divide over Afghanistan, with a unified military command on the one side — including McChrystal, Mullen, and Petraeus — and a president who is not sure he wants to follow through on "the counterinsurgency strategy he set in motion six months ago" on the other. There's this anonymous quote from one observer: "He can send more troops and it will be a disaster and he will destroy the Democratic party. Or he can send no more troops and it will be a disaster and the Republicans will say he lost the war." Isn't...

Top Republicans, inspired by President Barack Obama’s recent drop in popularity, are newly optimistic about their chances of challenging him in 2012 and are focusing on some surprising names. Some major donors and GOP strategists have approached Joe Scarborough, the host of MSNBC’s "Morning Joe,” about a national run, according to party sources. Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, the Republican nominee in 1996, told POLITICO that he would like to see Army four-star Gen. David Petraeus — the head of the U.S. Central Command, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan — run for president as a latter-day Ike....

WASHINGTON, Aug. 26, 2009 – The commander of U.S. Central Command said tough fighting lies ahead in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other extremists have expanded their strength and influence, but he cautioned that success there demands more than battlefield victories. With violence reaching peak levels this summer, reversing enemy security gains will require sustained commitment from U.S. and multinational forces, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus told the American Legion in Louisville, Ky., yesterday. “Despite important achievements in various areas, given the deterioration in the security situation, an enormous amount of hard work and tough fighting lie ahead in Afghanistan,”...

EXCLUSIVE: Gen. David H. Petraeus plans to open an in-house intelligence organization at U.S. Central Command this week that will train military officers, covert agents and analysts who agree to focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan for up to a decade. The organization, to be called the Center for Afghanistan Pakistan Excellence, will be led by Derek Harvey, a retired colonel in the Defense Intelligence Agency who became one of the Gen. Petraeus’ most trusted analysts during the 2007-08 counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq. Mr. Harvey distinguished himself in Iraq by predicting that the Iraqi insurgency would spiral out of control, at...

Gotta see video:'60 Minutes': A remarkable recovery

ON A blustery August afternoon in Edinburgh last week, the most celebrated military commander of his age was quietly doing the rounds with a group of injured British soldiers in the south of the capital. The commander of US Central Command, General David Petraeus, was talking about his legendary running exploits. Ten years ago, he fractured his pelvis after falling 60ft to the ground when, at the end of a skydiving jump, his parachute collapsed. At the newly opened Army Recovery Centre in Edinburgh, funded partly by the Homes for Heroes campaign, Petraeus was attempting to encourage a soldier who,...

Politics: Democrats say Rush Limbaugh is running the Republican Party. Better Rush than George Soros, who is running the Democrats. At least Rush believes in freedom, capitalism and letting you keep what you earn.The cover of the March 7 issue of Newsweek shows a picture of conservative icon Limbaugh with a piece of tape covering his mouth and the word "Enough!" So much for disagreeing with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it. Voltaire could never be a contributor to Newsweek. But David Frum is, and his inside cover story, "Why Rush Is Wrong,"...

MANAMA, Bahrain, July 27, 2009 – The head of U.S. Central Command visited the guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge while in port here today to thank sailors for their work while deployed to U.S. 5th Fleet, as well as for their role in the rescue of Richard Phillips, the Maersk Alabama cargo ship captain held captive by Somali pirates. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, addresses sailors aboard USS Bainbridge while the ship was in port in Manama, Bahrain, July 27, 2009. Petraeus thanked sailors for their hard work while deployed to U.S. 5th Fleet as well...

Note: Video included. SNIPPET: "CENTCOM Commander General David Petraeus discusses Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and the Long War at the World Affairs Council's Global Leadership Series in Seattle's Town Hall."

July 09, 2009Why I'm Thankful for George W. BushBy Ken Russell On October 23, 1983 the Marine Corps Battalion Landing Team (BLT) building located at the Beirut International Airport was blown up.  Two hundred twenty Marines, 18 Sailors and 3 Soldiers were killed in a split second by a suicide bomber.  I wasn't there at the time.  I was participating in Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada.  I was a squadron CH-46E helicopter co-pilot in Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 261 (HMM-261) and also the squadron classified materials officer.  Being the one who set up the squadron classified messages, I read about...

This week, American troops start leaving Iraqi cities in compliance with both former President George W. Bush's negotiated start date for withdrawal and President Barack Obama's campaign pledge. Given Bush's profound commitment to succeed in Iraq, if he were still in office and if he judged such a scheduled removal of troops to be dangerous, he doubtlessly would have postponed the action -- just as he changed his strategy and ordered the surge against the advice of most of his government and most of Washington in 2007. Yet it was that surge and the changed strategy designed and led by...

FEC dismisses complaint on MoveOn's "Betray Us" ad @ 2:38 pm by Aaron Blake The Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruled Thursday that The New York Times did not provide MoveOn.org with a special rate for its 2007 full-page ad critical of Gen. David Petraeus. The ad, which ran in 2007 and called Petraeus "General Betray Us," caused a lot of controversy when it first ran, and Democrats were forced to separate themselves from the liberal group. Conservative commentators also alleged that MoveOn was given a special rate for the ad - evidence of the New York Times's supposed liberal bias...

Washington, 1 June (WashingtonTV)—In an interview published on Monday, the United States’ top commander in the Middle East said that Iran was continuing its activities against Iraq and the coalition forces stationed there. General David Petraeus also said that “increased concerns” about Iran’s nuclear intentions among Arab states in the Persian Gulf had strengthened relations between the United States and those states. “The continued arming, training, funding, and directing of Shiite extremists in Iraq is not just of concern to us. It is of concern to the government of Iraq and they have stated that to their neighbor on a...

PRAGUE -- The head of U.S. Central Command, General David Petraeus, has told RFE/RL he thinks that "on balance" the expected closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and abandonment of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques will "help" U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the struggle against transnational extremist violence.

Every British officer I talk with asks what in the world happened with General McKiernan, and why was his relief performed so publicly. I do not know. And I do not personally know General McKiernan. I do know that these ears have never heard someone speak a foul word about him, and I talk with lots of interesting people. If he, McKiernan, was a bad general I would have heard about it. However, General McKiernan did make some statements about additional troops to Afghanistan, and when he made those statements I remember thinking, “He’s going to get fired.” And so...

Here is video of Gen. David Petraeus being interviewed yesterday by CNN's John King. In the interview, Petraeus talked about Pakistan and the offensive they have undertaken against the Taliban in the Swat Valley region. Petraeus also made the statement that Al-Qaeda is no longer based in Afghanistan, although affiliates of Al-Qaeda continue to operate is some isolated areas. . . . . . (Watch Video)

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2009 – Taliban operatives shaking down villages for money appear to have forced civilians to remain in buildings that were bombed in the course of a long May 4 firefight, the commander of U.S. Central Command said today. Gen. David H. Petraeus said on “Fox News Sunday” that a joint U.S.-Afghan investigation team looking into the incident addressed the events leading up to the aerial attack targeting Taliban fighters in which an undetermined number of Afghan civilians were killed. “The Taliban moved into these villages seeking to extort money from them,” Petraeus said. The Taliban killed and...

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2009 – Pakistani leadership is united in opposing the Taliban occupation of the Swat Valley, and the leaders also understand a “whole-of-government” counterinsurgency strategy is necessary in the country, the chief of U.S. Central Command said today. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said on “Fox News Sunday” that the Taliban operations in the valley – about 60 miles north of the capital of Islamabad – “seem to have galvanized all of Pakistan.” He said that not only political leaders of all parties, but also the Pakistani people, realize swift and effective action must be taken against the...

Gen. David Petraeus appeared on "Fox News Sunday" to discuss the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. The head of U.S. Central Command said Sunday that Al Qaeda is no longer operating in Afghanistan, with its senior leadership having moved to the western region of Pakistan.

(Gen. David Petraeus says affiliated organizations still have "enclaves and sanctuaries" in the country. ) The head of U.S. Central Command said Sunday that Al Qaeda is no longer operating in Afghanistan, with its senior leadership having moved to the western region of Pakistan. Gen. David Petraeus said affiliated groups have "enclaves and sanctuaries" in Afghanistan and that "tentacles of Al Qaeda" have touched countries throughout the Middle East and northern Africa. But he said the terrorist group has suffered" very significant losses" in recent months. Still, he said he believes Usama bin Laden and his No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri...

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General David Petraeus, the commander of US Central Command, has reportedly told American officials that the next two weeks are critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive. Gen Petraeus reportedly said that "we've heard it all before" from the Pakistanis and he is looking to see concrete action by the government to destroy the Taliban in the next two weeks before determining the next course of action for the US. "The Pakistanis have run out of excuses" and are "finally getting serious" about combating the threat from Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists operating out of north-west Pakistan, the general...

Commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM) Gen David Petraeus has told US officials the next two weeks are “critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive”, FOX News reported on Thursday. “The Pakistanis have run out of excuses ... [and are] finally getting serious” about combating the threat from the Taliban and Al Qaeda, said the general. But Petraeus also said wearily that “we’ve heard it all before” from the Pakistanis, and he was looking to see concrete action aginst the Taliban in the next two weeks before determining America’s next course of action. According to Fox News, Petraeus...

WASHINGTON, April 28, 2009 – Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the author of the military’s counterinsurgency manual, yesterday explained the principles that led to success in Iraq and how they apply to the fight in Afghanistan. The commander of U.S. Central Command spoke to a packed stadium at Kansas State University, invited as part of the prestigious Alfred M. Landon lecture series on public issues hosted there. To a resounding ovation, he stepped to a podium that has seen three standing presidents and five former presidents, the current and three previous defense secretaries, a slew of politicians, ambassadors, Pulitzer and...

Gen. David Petraeus, chief of U.S. Central Command, said Friday the maritime shipping industry must do more on its own to stop pirates. In a Capitol Hill appearance before a congressional subcommittee, Petraeus said companies must consider investing in a variety of options to defend their ships from well-armed attackers, from simply increasing ships' speeds, to removing ladders, to hiring armed guards. "There are a number of actions that need to be taken," Petraeus said. "Among them it is important the maritime shipping industries get more serious about this problem." "We need the maritime shipping companies to do more than...

Army Gen. David Petraeus warned Congress Friday that the United States faces a “tough road” ahead in Afghanistan and more difficult challenges than in Iraq, where he led American forces before taking charge of the U.S. Central Command. Appearing before the House Appropriations Committee, Petraeus said the mission set out by President Barack Obama is “vitally important” but will require a “sustained, substantial commitment” complicated further by Pakistan’s failure thus far to do more to address the expanded Taliban insurgency in its own borders. Afghanistan does not have “a number of the blessings” enjoyed by Iraq, whether measured in oil...

The top U.S. military officer in charge of the African coastline plagued by pirates says shipping companies should take a hard look at hiring armed guards to protect their ships. Gen. David Petraeus... said Friday that the U.S. military already has used armed guards aboard some commercial ships that carry military cargo. He said cargo ships can't really protect themselves with fire hoses when the pirates have rocket propelled grenades.

General Petraeus knows that this President makes decisions on Iraq that are purely political and since Obama wants to appease his far left wing fringe base, saying we are gonna just pull out troops will just embolden our enemy...Petaeus sounds a warning.. Remember the "Bush is not listening to the Generals about Iraq" lets see if this is treated the same....

As more U.S. troops head for Afghanistan, the military situation there will "get worse before it gets better," Gen. David Petraeus said Tuesday. His remarks, made at a forum at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, echoed warnings he made before the 2007 "surge" of U.S. troops credited in part with eventually calming violence in Iraq. Petraeus, who heads U.S. Central Command and oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cited the revived Taliban and the rise in drug trafficking, which supports militants. "We are going to make progress, but it’s going to get worse before it gets better,"...

General David Petraeus, architect of the US military surge credited with dramatically reducing violence in Iraq, has said that Pakistan's leaders need to realise that their biggest threat comes from internal extremists, not from neighbouring India. "It's an intellectually dislocating idea for the institutions of Pakistan," Petraeus, the leader of US Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, told a forum at the Harvard University Tuesday, referring to the country's military and political establishment. The goal in working with Pakistan, whose Afghanistan border has become a haven for insurgents, is to help its officials understand that "the...