Sensitive General

by digby

I was going to comment on Charles Krauthamer’s odd argument that we should stay in Iraq because it would insult General Petreus if we didn’t, but I’m too tired to deconstruct lunatics today. Fortunately, Thers at Whiskey Fire still has the energy:

He seems to be saying that it’s a good thing that after four years we’ve finally learned how to combat an insurgent enemy (Al Qaeda in Iraq) that wasn’t there when we invaded in the first place and that this means we don’t have to worry anymore about the whole civil war/ethnic conflict/complete fuckup of a central government stuff. Also, if we pulled out troops it would say bad things about General Petraeus and that’s totally not fair. No, seriously:

To cut off Petraeus’s plan just as it is beginning — the last surge troops arrived only last month — on the assumption that we cannot succeed is to declare Petraeus either deluded or dishonorable. Deluded in that, as the best-positioned American in Baghdad, he still believes we can succeed. Or dishonorable in pretending to believe in victory and sending soldiers to die in what he really knows is an already failed strategy.

Christ knows these maniacs have come up with some odd arguments in their time, but “you can’t take your ball and go home because that might make the General cry” is one of the flat-out weirdest.

And that’s saying something.

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