Gen. Petraeus says we should stay in Iraq, warning against the effects of a “quick pullback” (ie, a considered withdrawal from combat operations).

It would have been news if he said this instead: “Ladies and gentleman, we’ve got to get the hell out of there immediately. Our being in Iraq is a shit-storm of a mistake that makes Vietnam look a damned holiday by comparison. What Iraq needs is peacekeeping forces and an end to the U.S. presence.”

The Patraeus show has been a set up from the beginning. Ask Donald Trump how he thinks we should approach the problems of an impoverished neighborhood in New York and you can bet he’d come up with a “bold” plan to raze it and put a garish skyscraper for rich people in its place.

But the general has spoken and we’re all jumping in response. He’s been on the ground, after all, taking a measure of the situation for months, commanding troops, training counter-insurgents, speaking a smattering of Arabic. It’s as if we’re supposed to believe there are no longer any journalists or scholars or analysts or even other military personnel whose ideas hold any weight by comparison. This is reminiscent of Colin Powell, after his careful examination of all the evidence, speaking about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. So why believe this general, exactly? Haven’t a bunch of other generals been telling us for years that the operation in Iraq is a quagmire and to get out and end it as soon as possible?

Most cynical of course is the timing of the Petraeus show. It’s September 11th. If we don’t endorse the general’s stay-the-course plan, we’ll be painted as cowards who are defiling the memory of the 9/11 victims and heroes and aiding and abetting the terrorists.

Osama bin Laden and his minions killed roughly 3,000 people directly on 9/11. Their plan was to (a) create a terror spectacle for the world to see, (b) hit America on its own shores, (c) bring down the World Trade Center as the arch-symbol of imperialist capitalism, and (d) draw America into an un-winnable “clash of civilizations” that would engender anti-Americanism worldwide, political unrest at home and death to U.S. soldiers abroad.

To date, more than 1.6 million Americans have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As of last month, 67,000 of them had been killed or wounded and more than 250,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans had been treated at V.A. hospitals after returning from combat.

Should we stay in Iraq? Bush and Co. would have you believe that “cutting and running” now would be playing into the hands of the terrorists. The opposite is true. The 9/11 anniversary course of action advanced by Petraeus and Bin Laden are the same.

Tags: iraq, osama bin laden, petraeus