General Petraeus: Zionism "s Military Poodle.
May 5, 2008 Iran prepares for a US attack
General Petraeus: Zionism’s Military Poodle: From Surge to Purge to Dirge
by Prof. James Petras
Global Research, May 4, 2008
General Petraeus: “President Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders promised to end their support for the special groups but the nefarious activities of the Quds Force have continued.”
Senator Joseph Lieberman: “Is it fair to say that the Iranian-backed special groups are responsible for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians?”
General Petraeus: “It certainly is…That is correct.”
General Petraeus testimony to the US Senate, April 8-9, 2008.
“The Israeli flag is proudly displayed above the Sacred Ark alongside the American flag…”( in an orthodox synagogue in wealthy Georgetown, Washington DC. The entrance fee to the synagogue is $1000 for a single holiday.)
“On each Sabbath the prayers include the benediction for the Israeli Jewish soldiers and the prayer for the welfare of the Israeli government and its officials. Many Jewish American Administration officials pray there. They not only don’t try to conceal their religious affiliation, but go to great lengths to demonstrate their Judaism since it may help their careers greatly.
The enormous Jewish influence in Washington is not limited to the government. In the Washingtonian media, a very significant part of the most important personages and of the presenters of the most popular programs on TV are warm Jews … and let us not forget, in this context, the Jewish predominance in the Washingtonian academic institutions.”
Avinoam Bar-Yosef, Ma’riv (Israeli daily newspaper), September 2, 1994 (translated by Israel Shahak).
Introduction
When President Bush appointed General David Petraeus Commander (head) of the Multinational Forces in Iraq, his appointment was hailed by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post as a brilliant decision: A general of impeccable academic and battlefield credentials and a warrior and counter-insurgency (terrorist) intellectual. The media and the President, the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and Congress, described his appointment as ‘America’s last best hope for salvation in Iraq’. Senator Hilary Clinton joined the chorus of pro-war politicians in praise and support of Petraeus’ ‘professionalism and war record’ in Northern Iraq. In contrast, Admiral William Fallon, his predecessor and former commander, had called Petraeus’ briefings ‘a piece of brown-nosing chicken shit’.
In theory and strategy, in pursuit of defeating the Iraqi resistance, General Petraeus was a disastrous failure, an outcome predictable form the very nature of his appointment and his flawed wartime reputation.
An analysis and critique of the failure of military-driven imperialism and its militarily dangerous consequences requires an objective critical analysis of Petraeus’ media-inflated military record prior to taking command. Equally important Petraeus close ideological and political linkages with Israel’s militarist approach toward Iran (and the rest of the Middle East countries opposing it) dates back to his close collaboration with Israel’s (unofficial) military advisers and intelligence operatives in Kurdish Northern Iraq.
Petraeus’ Phony Success in Northern Iraq
Petraeus’ vaunted military successes in Northern Iraq – especially in Nineveh province in Northern Iraq was based on the fact that it is dominated by the Kurdish warlord tribal leaders and party bosses eager to carve an independent country. The relative stability of the region has little or nothing to do with Petraeus’ counter-insurgency theories or policies and more to do with the high degree of Kurdish ‘independence’ or ‘separatism’ in the region. Put bluntly, the US and Israeli military and financial backing of Kurdish separatism has created a de facto independent Kurdish state, one based on the brutal ethnic purging of large concentrations of Turkmen and Arab citizens. Petraeus: Armchair Strategist
His theory of ‘securing and holding’ territory presumes a highly motivated and reliable military force capable of withstanding hostility from at least eighty percent of the colonized population. Petraeus, like Bush and the Zionist militarists ignore the fact that the morale of US soldiers in Iraq and those scheduled to be sent to Iraq is very low. The ranks of those who are seeking a quick exit from military service now include career soldiers and non-commissioned officers – the backbone of the military (Financial Times, March 3-4, 2007 p.2) The soldiers being recruited include convicted felons, mentally unstable young men, uneducated and impoverished immigrants and professional mercenaries. Unauthorized absences (AWOLs) have shot up – 14,000 between 2000-2005 (FT ibid). In March 2007, over one thousand active-duty and reserve soldiers and marines petitioned Congress for a US withdrawal from Iraq. By April 2008, a record 69% opposed Bush’s war strategy and economic policy (USA Today, April 22, 2008). The opposition of retired and active Generals to Bush’s escalation of troops percolates down the ranks to the ‘grunts’ on the ground, especially among reservists on active duty whose tours of duty in Iraq have been repeatedly extended (the ‘backdoor draft’). Demoralizing prolonged stays or rapid rotation undermines any effort of ‘consolidating ties’ between US and Iraqi officers and certainly undermines most efforts to win the confidence of the local population.
If the US troops are deeply troubled by the war in Iraq and increasingly subject to desertion and demoralization, how less reliable is the Iraqi mercenary army. .
While the addition of 30,000 US troops saturating Baghdad initially reduced civilian and military casualties there, fighting intensified in other regions and cities. More important, the decline of violence had less to do with Petraeus’ ‘surge’ and had more to do with the temporary political cease-fire reached with the anti-occupation forces of Muqtada al Sadr. This was clear when the US and its client Prime Minister Maliki launched an offensive against Sadr’s forces in March-April 2008 and casualties shot up, and even the US ‘Green Zone bunker’ came under daily rocket attacks. After 18 months under Commander Petraeus, the Iraqi troops showed little willingness to fight their own compatriots engaged in resistance. Thousands turned their arms over to the anti-colonial popular militias and several hundreds joined them
Petraeus ‘rule book’ prioritizes “security and task sharing as a means of empowering civilians and prompting national reconciliation.” ‘Security’ is elusive because what the US Commander considers ‘security’ is the free movement of US troops and collaborators based on the insecurity of the colonized Iraqi majority. They continue to subject the civilian Iraqis to arbitrary house-to-house searches, break-ins and humiliating searches and arrests.
While the death toll of civilians declined from ‘hundreds a day’ to ‘hundreds a week’, it demonstrated Petraeus’ failure to achieve his most elementary goal. ‘Task Sharing’ as defined by Petraeus and his officers is a euphemism for Iraqi collaboration in ‘administrating’ his orders. ‘Sharing’ involves a highly asymmetrical relation of power: the US orders and the Iraqis comply. Petraeus defines the ‘task’ as informing on insurgents. The Iraqi population is supposed to provide ‘information’ on their families, friends and compatriots, in other words betray their own people. The concept sounded more feasible in his manual than in practice. US troops still are ambushed on a daily basis and insurgents, operating among the population, bomb their armored carriers.
for national reconciliation and stability. Military imposed ‘reconciliation’ among warring collaborator groups with no legitimacy among the Iraqi electorate has been a disaster.
for ending the conflict because of his blind implementation of the Bush-Zionist ‘war to victory’ policy.
other requests (for troops) looming out there. That’s not to say that some emerging mission or emerging task will not require that, and if it does then we will ask for that (my emphasis)” (AlJazeera, 3/8/2006). First there’s a ‘surge’ then there is an ‘emerging mission’ and suddenly there are another fifty thousand troops on the ground and in the meat-grinder that is Iraq, seven battleship and aircraft carriers off the Persian and Lebanese coasts, thousands more troops in Afghanistan and $175 billion dollars in military spending added to the 2008 federal budget.
only as long as the armored cars patrolled each neighborhood, pointing their In his Senate testimony of April 8-9, 2008, Petraeus lied to Congress and the American people about the US military failures, fabricating accounts of progress, in order to bolster the sagging fortunes of his political patron, President Bush. His Senate testimony and press conferences were designed to bolster Bush’s total loss of credibility: he claimed that the war was being won, Iraq was stabilized, security and peace were ‘around the corner’ and that we should go to war with Iran.
If the media uncritically swallowed Petraeus testimony, the public didn’t and a host of former generals and admirals were chagrined, embarrassed and outraged that he was advancing his career by sucking up to President Bush and Israel at the expense of the troops serving under him.
Petraeus Panders to Israel’s Fifth Column: The Iran Threat
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General Petraeus:Zionism"s Military Poodle
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