R*E*S*P*E*C*T

Of course the Republicans want to make a big deal out of the MoveOn.org advertisement; condemning it as a "despicable act" although none of them has ever spent a moment condemning scurrilous attacks on any Democrat. It's not as though public figures and public employees are above criticism or have a history of not deserving it.

Somehow though, nothing can be said these days about anyone in the military without bowing the head and mumbling formulae about honor and sacrifice. It's not about honor and sacrifice, it's about being wrong. It's about the kind of bravado and blind confidence that gets people killed. It's about having a history of predicting imminent and rosy outcomes that never come out as predicted.

Respect, of course, is what you demand when you are defending something most people doubt and you have a record of defending misestimations and mistakes, but respect for generals and their opinions and their ability to speak against their commanders commands has to be earned and so far I don't think that Petraeus has earned respect for his predictions or objectivity, PhD notwithstanding.

It seems that a majority of Americans doubt him; doubt the independence of his thoughts and statements and the success of adding a few more troops after the country is nearly destroyed. A majority doubts that the word "Victory" or "Winning" really apply. While I wouldn't go so far as to say he has betrayed us, and while I give him respect where it is due, he owes us, we don't owe him or Bush or any of his gang of forty thieves. By trying to make the opinion of the public seem the delusion of a fringe group wearing silly hats or some nasty terrorist loving Liberals who don't support the troops or worship the generals and pay too much attention to GAO reports and independent news sources, they are simply distracting us from remembering our own sovereignty.

None of us ever would have voluntarily spent 10 billion dollars a day, year after tedious year or suffered thousands of casualties or hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in order to risk a one in a million chance of a liberal democracy friendly to Western oil exploitation if we had know the cost or anticipated a war that could take another 10 or 15 years to produce a very dubious chance of success. None of us owes any particular respect to any of those who conned us into it and who act petulant when we demand out. None of us need feel bad about disrespecting those who have done nothing whatever to punish the 9/11 perpetrators and who have invoked their deeds every other minute and have convinced us that they are around every corner in order to cow us into continuing on a losing and self destructive course forever.