Word: petraeus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Both Barack Obama and John McCain want to increase the 33,000-person U.S. military presence, but pacifying a country so large and unruly will require hundreds of thousands of troops that the U.S. doesn't have. And so no less a figure than General David Petraeus has endorsed a wholly different solution: negotiating with the Taliban. "You have to talk to enemies," Petraeus said on Oct. 8. "This is how you end these kinds of conflicts...
That policy would appear to have the support of Obama--who has said that as President, he would meet "with anyone at the time and place of my choosing"--though not of McCain, who cites Petraeus as an ally every day on the campaign trail but whose running mate, Sarah Palin, has called negotiating with rogue regimes "beyond naive...
...think McCain has answered a single question with that sort of clarity in these debates. He answers with oblique gestures - raising totems like General Petraeus and Senator Joe Lieberman as proof of his bona fides - or attacks on targets (like "liberalism") whose relevance has evaporated during the past eight years. Even when it comes to national security, his alleged area of expertise, McCain has difficulty explaining himself. His waffling about whether to cross the border into Pakistan for targeted strikes against al-Qaeda leaders was both foolish and incomprehensible: if the Pakistanis are our allies, as he insisted...
...Pakistan, even as Zardari declared "we cannot allow our territory and sovereignty to be violated by friends." While Pentagon officials were upset that the Pakistani military fired on their aircraft and were seeking an explanation, the word of the day at the Defense Department was "de-escalate." General David Petraeus, who has just stepped down as head of U.S. troops in Iraq and who in a month will become head of U.S. Central Command, which includes Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, says Pakistan's very existence is threatened by the turmoil along its border with Afghanistan. "Pakistan faces a threat that...
...basic services such as water and electricity. The resentment is fueling growing apathy toward the political process and alienation from the government. Few Iraqis are hopeful that upcoming provincial elections will help improve their lot. Likewise, the change of U.S. command doesn't mean much to some Iraqis. "General Petraeus, General Odierno - what difference does it make to me?" said one Iraqi working near the U.S. military base where the handover ceremony took place. Maybe he, too, was waiting for General Electric...