Word: generalization
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...Obama is as wise as he seems, non-Americans will appreciate soon enough that he has just been elected President of the United States, not Secretary-General of the United Nations. Of course, every American President knows that his decisions have consequences for places far from the borders of the U.S., like the famous butterfly of chaos theory whose beating wings can cause a storm thousands of miles away. Obama and his advisers are doubtless sincere when they say that they want to restore America's reputation for decency and competence. But constitutionally and in every other way that really...
When Ray Odierno took over the top military post in Iraq from General David Petraeus in September, there was a lot of hand-wringing among folk at defense think tanks in Washington worried that he was the wrong man for the job. They pointed to Odierno's reputation from his first tour in Iraq, in 2003, as a heavy-handed division commander who had neither a grasp of the subtleties of fighting an insurgency nor the political acumen to sell his ideas back home. Some correspondents who covered Iraq in the months after the fall of Saddam Hussein also came...
Odierno's physique and personality contributed to his image as a military bull in a china shop (See TIME's interview with Odierno). The general is 6 ft. 5 in. (2 m) and 245 lb. (111 kg); he played tight end at West Point. A native of Rockaway, N.J. (pop. 6,000), he speaks with the occasional New Jersey grumble, and bluntly. Odierno usually suffers in comparisons with the suave, diplomatic Petraeus. As a senior commander in Iraq told TIME in 2006, "If Dave is polish, Ray is spit." (See pictures of U.S. troops' 5 years in Iraq...
...success of the surge has led to a reassessment of Odierno, 54. Retired General Jack Keane, who consulted closely with Odierno on the surge in late 2006, was so impressed that he later used his powerful connections in the Administration to push for promoting Odierno to Petraeus' job. "He went through a complete metamorphosis," says Keane. "He educated himself and became the pre-eminent operational commander we have in conducting irregular warfare...
...over the country. Displaying political dexterity, he persuaded a nervous Iraqi government to sign on to the Sons of Iraq program, which turned thousands of insurgents into neighborhood-watch groups. If Petraeus gets credit for ushering in the surge, it was Odierno who "made it work," says Lieut. General Nasier Abadi, deputy chief of staff of the Iraqi joint forces...