"The Petraeus Myth"....Video/Interview from "The Real News" with Paul Jay

[KoKo]

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Bio

Gareth Porter is a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analyst. He writes regularly for Inter Press Service on US policy towards Iraq and Iran. Author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.

Transcript

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome to this week's edition of The Porter Report with investigative journalist Gareth Porter. Gareth now joins us from our studio in Washington, D.C. Thanks for joining us, Gareth.


GARETH PORTER, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST:[b/] Thanks very much, Paul. Glad to be back again.JAY: So what are you working on this week?PORTER: Well, this week I've been working on my four-part series on how David Petraeus essentially created a myth of his own success, particularly in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan. And I've had the first two pieces published at Truthout, and the third is in the can, ready to be published, I think, the beginning of next week. And then the fourth, which will be on Afghanistan, will come later that week.

JAY: Why do you think this is a myth?PORTER: Well, I think it's a myth because if you go into the specifics of what actually happened in each of his commands, three commands in Iraq and the one in Afghanistan, what you find is that there's always a myth surrounding the claims that are made about his success, beginning with his first command, which was primarily in Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, from 2003-2004. And in that command he was given credit by one journalist after another who went to Mosul and spoke with him and wrote stories for having essentially done what no other U.S. commander in Iraq during that period of the war was able to do, which was supposedly to keep control over the Sunni insurgency. And, again, of course, Mosul is a predominantly Sunni city, and so we're talking about a Sunni insurgency there. What I found out from a source which has, as far as I know, not been picked up by anybody else in the news media, a paper that was done at the Naval Postgraduate School in 2008, as I recall, was that if you look at the actual figures for the number of attacks by the Sunni insurgents by month in Mosul and you begin June, what you find is that there was a steady buildup from about 25 attacks per month in around May, May-June, up to more than 130 a month in December, actually. But over that roughly six- or seven-month period, the Sunni insurgents had actually tripled the level of their attacks. The fact is that the attacks in Mosul represented about one-fifth of the attacks countrywide.
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http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=9284

More of the Four Part ...first of Four at:
"Truth Out.org" also if you just put "Truth Out.org" in your Browser.

[LiberalFighter]

1. Petraus needs to be investigated.

To determine if he was responsible for prolonging the war there.

[KoKo]

2. Agree...and hope it will come. Notice the lock down on him and Allen since they

"Lawyered Up" and hired those "Re-Imaging Companies" that work to rehab Celebrities, Politicians and Others who "get into trouble" to give the MSM the Talking Points and Massage the Message?

It's amazing the kind of Public Relations Campaigns that our "Rich and Powerful" can get behind them if they have enough money to pay them to do it, isn't it.

Doesn't Kelly have the Lawyer that Bill Clinton had in the Lewinsky affair? Or, is that Petraeous's Paramour who hired him? It get's hard to keep it all straight and now the MSM is on lockdown about the whole thing.

Some are saying that Obama wanted Petraeous gone and so did Panetta...because he was a liability so they are happy that there's a "lock down" on further news about the two or three or more.

"GOOD RIDDANCE to BAD RUBBISH" might be what we out here in People Land are being told...but, like you, I believe there needs to be much more investigation about this.

Did Petraeus and other Generals benefit from the "Pallets of Money" that were reported to be taken out of Iraq which Saddam had stashed away. We never heard where that money went and there's been little to no investigations of where Saddam and Iraq's money went except from some early reports that a bunch of kids of NeoCons were sent in to set up and Iraq Stock Market shortly after the Invasion. I've often wondered how much money those young kids (most in college or just graduated) got out of it...and who else got the cut?

[ricardA]

3. PEACE

The general should work for true peace now. Peace peace peace and peace now, soon, it will compensate for the problems caused. I want peace, a working society, true development, true science and technology for good not for bad deeds. THAT is a reason for celebration, for admiration for hard work, for a worthy cause. The general should act upon that.