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My Briefing from General Petraeus
I have not been called a war criminal for at least 35 years. But that’s what was screamed at me when I muscled my way through a crowd of chanting anti war protesters on my way to a briefing from General David Petraeus, Commander of the US Central command.
Every senior military officer in the San Francisco Bay Area could be found in the packed, steamy hall at the Marines Memorial Association, including at least 20 generals and admirals. With just two bars on my collar, I was way beyond my pay grade, but a few phone calls in Washington can move mountains. Petraeus is a four star with a PhD in international affairs from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School who is best known in the services for being the brassy young cadet who married the commandant’s daughter at West Point. Today he ran through a polished PowerPoint presentation that would have made Goldman Sachs proud.
He laid out how he was going to get our 130,000 troops out of Iraq by 2011. Only a caretaker force providing close air support from remote bases will be left behind to back a large civilian presence. A dramatic change in counterinsurgency strategies has brought the daily number of attacks from 160 down to 10 since 2007, and monthly suicide bombings from 130 to 10.
The goal is to “Iraqritize” the country so it can stand on its own feet, both politically and militarily. Iraq now has a reliable military of 550,000 men, but last year’s collapse in oil prices is created budgetary problems.
Afghanistan will be a much harder nut to crack, requiring more troops, money, and time. Priority one is to wipe out the poppy fields in the South from which the Taliban derives its financing and local support. Rising wheat prices will help this effort. Some 70% of the violence is in 10% of the country in the mountains that border Pakistan.
The good news is that Pakistan is fighting its own war, not our war, for its own interests. Their nukes are secure and safe. Petraeus is bringing to bear incredibly sophisticated technology, including sensors mounted on the ground, in towers, balloons, drones, aircraft, and satellites, many of which are controlled remotely in the US and Europe. Is says a lot that the previous stop on his US road show was with the Microsoft crowd at Redmond Washington. Both Al Qaida and the Taliban are reeling from a series of predator drone attacks which is steadily wiping out the senior and middle leadership. Bandwidth is his most valuable weapon.
He told me his staff prepared an itinerary for his day off in San Francisco, which included yoga, aromatherapy, a seminar on website construction, and a visit to the farmer’s market to buy organic bean sprouts. He decided to pass, and instead went for a long run along our waterfront Embarcadero, drinking in the brisk, cool air, an unavailable pleasure in Baghdad. I asked him to look out for my nephews, young men in their early twenties who are fluent Arabic speakers, who are joining his cyber warfare group.
I follow the war in Iraq closely because I know the neighborhood first hand and have family in harm’s way. There also is the issue of the $1 trillion in immediate costs and $2 trillion in long term costs we have already run up, on top of the 4,200 American and 100,000 plus Iraqi lives lost. This war is bleeding us white in more ways than one. Losing wars, or at least not winning them, is bad for the economy and terrible for the stock market. One only has to look as far back as Vietnam to see why. Maybe that’s why stock investors have earned a zero return over the last decade? I hope Petraeus is able to achieve his ambitious goals. The fate of governments depends on it.
For more iconoclastic and out of consensus analysis, you can always visit me at www.madhedgefundtrader.com , where the conventional wisdom is mercilessly flailed and tortured daily. You can also download past programs on Hedge Fund Radio.
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I hear that after the speech, they all repaired to the Bohemian Grove, in their togas, to review the minutes of the last meeting of the Trilateral Commission.
Then, the new Illuminati inductees danced around the campfire in their Pan breeches and billygoat headgear.
Finally, the night grew long to strains of Wagner, and much Opus One and first-class blotter was consumed...
As dawn broke over the redwoods, the black helicopters arrived to deliver one and all back to the world-dominance grind.
Sometimes a man has to abandon principle and do what’s right. And doin’ right ain’t got no end, or no price tag. After we’re done in Iraq and Afghanistan, there will still be plenty more people to liberate around the world. If you wanna make an omelet, you’ve gotta break some eggs. Like my old friend, George (Patton), once told me: “Only when enough men have died can there be peace!”
All I ever ask of my men is that they obey my orders as they would the word of God. Now, why don’t you pansy-ass peaceniks jump on board for the big win?
loup garou
commanding general
So.. this meeting w Petraeus did occur: but last july
wtf?
http://www.ktvu.com/news/20011229/detail.html
And he didnt tell just madhatter about the "taste of SF" he told the whole audience.
"I asked my aide what we might do today that would give us a taste of San Francisco. And they came back with some great research and a whole list of activities. Quite a menu. A yoga class. An aromatherapy class. A conversational Mandarin class, or a building your own website seminar."
Petraeus said he settled for a run over the city's hilly terrain. And after the speech, he joined Secretary Shultz for dinner. "
Bearing in mind that he is as he says "mad" does anyone actually pay for stuff from this cunt?
http://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/Subscribe_Now.html
OK, when was this meeting? I looked on the SF Chronicle website and there was no mention of Petraeus in SF in the last 30 days. Can you explain when this took place?
OK Mr MHFT, how about the tons of depleted uranium spent casings and armor left in the desert by the US? Go ahead, google for some heavy duty images of birth defects from this stuff. Enjoy your "good war". Not to mention 5,000 "Official" US troop deaths, but those don't count ones that die at Ramstein AFB after they've been airlifted out, or the ones that die in the US. Or the suicides. Oh, and 100,000 dead iraqis? Conservatively 500K. Of course, 100K sounds so 'acceptable' (ref Madeleine Albright's views on long terms sanctions and dead children).
Tyler, the not-to-bright have a button on self-importance. 86 this dipshit pronto!
Med Hedge Fund trader is OK----he's simply posting on the wrong site. He needs to go over to the NY Times and join Krugman and Friedman so he can feel comfy spouting his fullofshit garbage. Or maybe he's a plant for one of the neocon traitors.
WELL...This is kind of a load of crap but one thing might be true and that is when this shit pie goes pop Patreaus is the odds on favorite to pick up the pieces...if he can make a deal with the Company.
Incidentally, using standard State Department methodology for estimating civilian war deaths, the count is 1.2 million dead Iraqs, but that was last year's number. Also, soldiers wounded in battle and sent to a hospital in Germany or another country and then die from their wounds in the hospital are not considered part of the Iraq body count. The actual death count of US soldiers is nearly 4 times the reported number.
This country's leadership is a den of thieves, liars and murderers.
Petraeus gave the San Francisco speech you're referring to in July or August 2009.
Also, he married the Superintendent's daughter, not the Commandant's daughter.
So why is this worth my time reading (assuming it's true)?
I have posted several times that Robin Cook, Britain's Home Secretary (similiar to our Sec of State) under Tony Blair held a press conference the week before Christmas 2008. His comments appeared on the site Centre for Research on Globalization for about a nano-second before they disappeared completely. What he said was that every Intelligence Agency worldwide knows that International Terrorism doesn't exist. It is a hoax, and an excuse for endless war. He also said that the literal meaning for Al-Qaeda was " the database". The database is the names of mujahideen fighters that the CIA used in the 1980s and continues to use today. And who owns the database? Why the CIA of course.
If you can still find it on the web, the interview with Aaron Russo describing his relationship with Nicolas Rockefeller remains astonishing even all these years later.
.
Watch the BBC documentary 'The Power Of Nightmares' by Adam Curtis.
I can't wait for the synopsis of your briefing from Jesus. If you can make time for him. Don't let us down MHFT. Who else has such access?
It would have been useful to ask the General what he thinks can be accomplished given the exact parallels* between the major features of this war and Vietnam?
*notably sensors and drones vs. indigenous guerrillas and the forlorn hope of '-ization' by an impossibly corrupt puppet government
MHFT seems to show up in more random places than Forrest Gump. Forrest always brought humility, though.
Why is it so difficult to take a few minutes of your Friday afternoon and suspend all disbelief and enjoy the satirical prose of an imaginative individual.
MHFT is offering a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Sit back, enjoy and try to find a few nuggets of truth sprinkled about all with the intent to tease your brain and possibly make you ponder.
Quite possibly the majority of you that have grown up with not only the Idiot Box and Radio but with the Internet as well and have not been exposed to a member of the older generation that did not have the privilidge of growing up with either the Idiot Box or the Internet.
Without TeeVee and the Internet and even Radio, back in the good ole days people would sit around and entertain themselves by spinning yarns and telling tall tales. Like mortgage liar loans these people were well known for telling whoppers and lies and everyone knew it, but the people were entertained by the stories none the less.
Obviously a lot of this is lost on the dolts of this generation.
One would expect this kind of upbeat public relations fluff piece from U.S. News and World Report. It seems that genocide for profit is a subject near to Mr. Two Bars heart. Maybe he holds stock in KBR or Halliburton. Or maybe he finds financing massive military weaponry and procurement like the boyz at GS an even more profitable enterprise. After all where would orders for durable goods be without Abrahms tanks, Stryker vehicles, TOW missiles and that new toy, the predator drone. And like a good little fund trader, he sure knows how to markdown liabilities to profit. 100,000 Iraqi dead? I think that level was surpassed way back in the early Clinton year or even under daddy Bush. Must have warmed his heart as he "muscled" his way through those protesters with his security clearance on the way to kiss Petraeus' ass. By the way its soooo! good to know that our grupenfuehrer is so thoroughly new age with his organic bean sprouts and aromatherapy. Life is so good in your brave new world! Go look up the Nuremberg Conventions and General Telford Taylor and while you're at it read up on General Smedley Butler USMC for a look at how real American patriots regard the enslavement and slaughter of innocent civilians, you suck up neocon chickenhawk. They worked for your friends at Murder Incorporated but they weren't quite as proud of it as you are.
"Predator drones are turning the tide"
These are the same ones the enemy was hacking into with $30 software to get the same video feed the US military was getting.
Predators on the Pakistani border.
Predators on the Colombian border.
Predators over Yemen.
Predators soon to be over the Korean DMXe.
Predators over New Jack,
Predators over Chicago.
These are practice runs
I was just going to say that!
Actually they have attempted to launch an experimental program employing smaller predators patrolling the highways in Texas. Mini- drones the size of model airplanes and all the way down to the size of large insects for domestic surveillance have also been developed. No kidding!
Very enjoyable narrative.
So are the Iraqi's to occupy those nice new bases?
Money and blood, falling through cracks; drip, drip.
Just bitching.....the world could be encased in clean water distribution systems....
40muleteam borax
Hey right. This guy is clearly just a whackjob with delusions of grandeur.
If this article weren't enough to confirm it, the wall-to-wall boasting on his website seals the deal.
Why Afghanistan doesn't have an effective army of its own by now is what bothers me. George Washington went from nothing in 1776 to a reasonably effective army by 1783. The Confederacy built another fairly decent army in an even shorter period. Now Afghanistan is composed of fairly war-like people. We aren't talking about converting peaceful farmers into combat hardened troops. These folks are combat hardened warriors we would like to have become peaceful farmers. So why no reliable national army 8 plus years since we arrived?
Not to be an economist, but the Washington comparison is terrible. In the last 18th century, the contribution of labor to military power was much higher then than it is now. Further, unless Mexico and Canada become belligerent, the US won't have the same continental entanglements that Britain had at the time.
You could have greatly shortened this article:
The US will keep minimal military power in Iraq to ensure wholesale slaughter of anyone interfering with Exxon, Shell, etc. profits.
The US will take troops removed from the Iraq fiasco and transfer them to Afghanistan to cause further unmitigated disaster to ensure oil pipelines can be built through the country. Drones will be used to terrify the local population into obedience until such time that Afghani's revolt and kick our ass back across the Pacific.
On the homefront, we'll continue to propogandize the population to accept all manner of police-state intrusiveness and repealing of Constitutional protections to breakdown any barriers to complete corporate capture of government.
Huh? The USA is at war?
When did the congress declare war against Iraq, Yemen, etc?
my understanding is the Taliban effectively wiped out the poppy fields under there regime. 2 yrs. after 9/11 they were back to pre Taliban production. one more reason for the invasion?
I hope you are right about this. The cyber drone thing will be the key. We shall see. From what I hear there is a downside to our success. Apparently the drones are visable and they are ever present. You will not find a single person on the ground whether they are good guys are not who accept this. When they see one they hate us more. So cyber could win the battle and lose the war.
How would you feel if you went out back to take a leak and some guy 8k miles away was zooming in on you?
I want to win. Im not sure we have defined winning yet.
I'll withhold any judgment about who or what the commentator is. I think though that ZH doesn't allow anyone to just post here. They have to have some background and expertise since the very nature of this site only allows permissions to write articles to people that ZH grants them too.
With that in mind, I think the GP Strategy is fatally flawed in one area: the poppy fields. They aren't going away anymore than drugs are going away in the US. The Taliban has been able to use the Poppy fields for financing because the US and it's allies are too stupid and or morally upright just to buy them enmasse at a far higher price than the Taliban could offer. Then the allies could split the crops and do what they wish. Keep in mind a top export year of Poppies is 4.3 Billion. If we assume a 8 Billion dollar price tag for all of them and we take 50% and the allies take the other 50%, we have taken out the financing for the Taliban and much of the Danger to our troops because of the resentment that eradicating these crops produce.
The poppy's could be used in opiate based painkillers even in the US who seems to think arresting Doctors for over prescribing them is far more important than say helping someone who is screaming with pain from a Chronic or terminal illness and is getting under prescribed because of the fear of the DEA .
But that is a common sense argument that is exclusively elusive to any policy that we generate now-a-days. So we burn it. 4 Billion down the drain compared to the 150 Billion we were spending in Iraq and will soon be spending in Afghanistan. The related component to this mess that was missing from War by PowerPoint is the GDP difference between Iraq and Afghanistan with similar size populations. Iraq has a GDP of 985 Billion. Afghanistan is lucky if it reaches 5 Billion and I've heard figures under a billion (not counting the Poppy's) . You simply can't have stability in a country with that many people with GDP numbers that small. Trying to compare that two is an exercise in futility from Govt, to location , one is landlocked and one isn't which means extended supply lines, to natural resources. Unofficial Geological surveys give the Iraqis an additional 200 Billion barrels of oil over the known reserves now which exceed what Saudia Arabia says they have. Afghanistan has nothing.
Until we come to grips with the idea that each is different , we will go through a horrific body count and money we don't have which is why I still believe these wars will stop only when the checks start to bounce.
No contractors no war.
What a load of crap this guy is. Is there anything else we don't know about you like you where one of the first men on the moon or you peformed at woodstock load of shit.
OK madhedge ... Is there any famous person you haven't received a personal briefing from? Gandhi? Abraham Lincoln? JFK ...?
Every time I read this guys BS I can't help but come to the conclusion that its his own fight club-esq split personality lunacy being played out in public, or a test of this:
http://tinyurl.com/y8rtc4w
So what is the Real story here? WTF are we doing there in the 1st place? The Domino Theory used in VN won't work. Drug interdiction is crap. Eliminate the demand by straightening the spines and clearing the minds of our people. There is a vacuum inside this country that needs to be filled with something of value. This isn't it. Neither is the super bowl, with 15 minutes of action and four hours of worthless garbage. There will be a vacuum in Iraqistan when / if we leave. You really think there won't be some other hot zone somewhere? Maybe it'll be here...naw, we're too limp. And we call the french pu$$ies.
OIL,OIL,OIL
Same old poppy field story. Wheres the US gonna get the cash to replace what they would lose?
the cia is not giving up its drug trade....
Duh...he said 'eliminate poppy fields in the south. The CIA must own the fields int he north and they don't like the Taliban ruining the profit margin...or something like that. Remember in 2001 we were paying the Taliban to fight the drug war. Obviously they were not doing it the right way(taking too big a cut or growing too much) and the CIA had to call in the marines.
Maybe he is Al Haig. Besides, guys need to vent, and this is a place where he can vent, which is better than him going "Al Haig" or something.
He's full of himself, but you have to give him credit... He called the Bernanke re-confirmation spot on. 77 Senate votes in favor was a windfall, and did not reflect the populist anger toward the Fed. Don't dismiss his insights just because he's cocky and egotistical.
Bring the Troops home... It was all a bad idea...
Stop tresspassing on other lands...
yes....this was a fake war to line the pockets
of the plutocrats....trillions wasted on a cia
invented phony enemy....one neither seen, heard,
or smelled...
it also served to grab oil and give us the nazi
patriot act....
the cia produces a fake bin laden video once every
so often, stages an incident as per this past
cmas, and always needs trillions to fight this
phantom enemy....
indeed there is over 1t usd in defense funds missing from the rumsfeld days which no one - absolute no one -
knows its location....
petraeus is a criminal....there is no more intent
to bring americans home than there is to cancel
american idol for a political science panel
discussion program....
is this guy for real? why is this permitted on this site
Predator Drones - Something no Pakistani wedding party can do without.
(My god you are a tool)
Nuke them. Annihilate them all.
funny how mhft's "about us" section of his website doesn't make note of his "two bars"
again, how is this iconoclastic? i could read canned crap like this in time magazine if i wanted to
That may have been the most worthless post I've seen on Zero Hedge. What about any of that qualifies as "iconoclastic and out of consensus analysis?"