[Peace-discuss] Obama tells another joke: Petraeus

[C. G. Estabrook]

I'm afraid not.  It would make for some interesting bar chat.

But I know you've found Chris Floyd interesting in the past:

     Termination Notice:
     McChrystal Sideshow Masks Murderous Reality
     Written by Chris Floyd
     Wednesday, 23 June 2010

"Some people seem to think that the question of which uniformed goober is in 
charge of the imperial bloodbath in Afghanistan is a vitally important issue, 
worthy of endless exegesis. It is not. It is a meaningless sideshow. What does 
matter, vitally, deeply, urgently, is the imperial bloodbath itself, and the 
fact that it will go on, and on, no matter what Barack Obama does or doesn't do 
about Stanley McChrystal..."

http://www.chris-floyd.com/articles/1-latest-news/1982-termination-notice-mcchrystal-sideshow-masks-murderous-reality.html 



On 6/23/10 5:52 PM, John W. wrote:
> This one was excellent.  Is this the same guy who owns Huber's, the little
> bar on W. Church St.?
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 5:39 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu
> <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>> wrote:
>
> Heard Any Good War Jokes Lately? by Jeff Huber, June 22, 2010
>
> The pratfall Dave Petraeus took face-first into his microphone during his
> farcical testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee last Tuesday
> channeled the Twix candy bar commercial that asks: “Need a moment?” As the
> New York Times put it, the Teflon General was facing some intense questioning
> on the president’s order to begin reducing American forces in Afghanistan
> next year when he “slumped toward the microphone on his table.” Maybe Dave
> just needed some time think things over. Maybe he needed to stall while his
> driver ran out to see if he left his crib sheet in his government sedan.
>
> The general returned to the floor a half hour after later claiming he “just
> got dehydrated.” Must have been from all the heat he was catching from the
> committee.
>
> The hearing’s running gag was a manhood dance between committee members who
> wanted Petraeus to come right out and say Obama’s withdrawal timeline for
> Afghanistan makes dirt look smart and Petraeus wanting to agree that Obama’s
> timeline makes dirt look smart without coming right out and saying it. This
> bit of patter between Petraeus and committee chairman Carl Levin deserves an
> Emmy:
>
> Levin: “Do you continue to support that July 2011 date for the start of
> reduction in U.S. forces from Afghanistan?”
>
> Petraeus: “I support the policy of the president, Mr. Chairman…”
>
> Levin: “When you say that you continue to support the president’s policy …
> does that represent your best personal professional judgment?”
>
> Petraeus: “In a perfect world, Mr. Chairman, we have to be very careful with
> timelines…”
>
> Levin: “Do I take that to be a qualified yes, a qualified no, or just a
> non-answer?”
>
> Petraeus: “A qualified yes, Mr. Chairman.”
>
> When the senior half of the comedy team McCain and Lieberman* asked Petraeus
> if he told Obama, as per a recent book by Joseph Alter of Newsweek, that he’s
> “confident we can train and hand over to the ANA” in 18 months, Petraeus’
> qualified non-answer was, “Well, Senator, I’m not sure it’s productive to
> comment on conversations that took place in the Oval Office.”
>
> After a three-Twix-bar think about it I couldn’t conjure a single thing that
> could possibly have been more productive at that testimony than commenting on
> Petraeus’ discussion with Obama in the Oval Office concerning withdrawal
> timelines. McCain apparently could, though, because he said, “I understand
> that. I understand that.” He must have said it twice in case nobody believed
> him the first time.
>
> Petraeus’ next non-answer was an unqualified masterpiece of bull-feather
> artistry. McCain asked “Do you agree with the comment of [Afghan] President
> Karzai’s former intelligence chief that Karzai has lost confidence in the
> ability of the United States and NATO to succeed in Afghanistan?”
>
> Petraeus replied that his protégé Stan McChrystal, commander in Afghanistan,
> had “no sense” that there was “a lack of confidence in the United States’
> commitment to Afghanistan.” To further support his position, he added, “The
> fact that we have more than tripled … our forces … is of enormous
> significance.”
>
> Note Petraeus’ sleight-of-tongue here: the issue was whether the United
> States could succeed in Afghanistan, not whether it would commit to
> Afghanistan. They are not the same thing, at least not in any sane
> interpretation of the terms. We cannot possibly succeed at anything in
> Afghanistan other than running our ship of state aground. Committing to a
> course that will run us aground, however, seems to be the war mongrels’ goal,
> hence Petraeus’ observation that tripling our number of forces there
> constitutes “success.”
>
> McCain then called Petraeus one of “America’s great heroes” but cautioned
> that he continued to worry about “the message we are sending to the region”
> by not making an even larger, even more open-ended commitment there than
> we’ve already made. That’s when Petraeus did his Chevy Chase impersonation
> and they carried his skinny carcass out of the room. Here’s how the dialogue
> went when Petraeus came back:
>
> Petraeus: “Senator, my apologies.”
>
> Levin: “Are you kidding?”
>
> Petraeus: “I got a little bit light-headed there. It wasn’t Senator McCain’s
> questions, I assure you.”
>
> Levin: “I know, it was mine.”
>
> Petraeus: “No, it’s just that…”
>
> Levin: “Clear me, too, would you, with the same breath, if you would? Just
> kidding.”
>
> Can these guys be bloody serious?
>
> Testimony the next day by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs
> Chairman Mike Mullen was equally bathetic, perhaps even more so. Gates and
> Mullen both asked the committee to be “patient” and allow them to make
> America’s longest war even longer. They’re like the lunatics who think we
> needed to have more patience with the Vietnam War. After all, we only
> committed a decade and a half-million troops to that conflict. Just think; if
> we had redoubled our efforts in Vietnam we’d still be winning there.
>
> Gates, predictably, blamed the media for America’s disaffection for the war
> in Afghanistan. “The narrative,” he rued, is “too negative.”
>
> Hmm. We’re backing a crooked ruler who stole an election and relying on his
> drug lord brother for intelligence. McChrystal himself called the Marjah
> offensive an “open sore,” and he had to delay the Kandahar offensive because
> nobody in Kandahar wants us to liberate them. We can’t even make up our minds
> who the enemy is. Is it the Taliban or is it al-Qaeda or is it the Pakistani
> security forces or is it Iran or maybe even the Turks? Wait: I bet it’s those
> crafty Chinese people! Or maybe that Venezuela guy we don’t like, Chavez or
> whatever his name is.
>
> The comedians who put on last week’s Senate Armed Services Committee
> burlesque should retire from their day jobs and write full time for Saturday
> Night Live. Lord knows the present manifestation of SNL needs all the help it
> can get. In fact, the best stratagem for fixing both our failed foreign
> policy and our bad television programming might be a role reversal: put the
> incompetent generals and politicians in charge of our wars on Saturday Night
> Live and put the incompetent comedians on Saturday Night Live in charge of
> our wars.
>
> The only thing genuine in the Senate hearing came from a lone protester who
> shouted “This is mass murder” as she was escorted out by police.
>
> No kidding, lady. No kidding.
>
> http://original.antiwar.com/huber/2010/06/21/heard-any-good-war-jokes-lately/
>

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