I agree with you that Patreaus was ill-treated and ill-used by people who have not half his perspicacity or experience. However, the fact remains that his task was to put a creditable face on a situation so dismal and catastrophic, that no such face exists. General Patreaus was himself betrayed by cynical – and, I might add, delusional – fools who saw a golden opportunity to use his (Patreaus’) competence and patriotism to justify four years of almost comical folly. Nobody in his right ming wanted us to start this war, much less lose it; but ironically, the only was we can lose it is on the battlefield … and the only way we can win it is in the halls of diplomacy. Patreaus didn’t do or say anything inconsistent with his role as a conscientious commander, and I’ll be the happy to join the chorus decrying the MoveOn ad as a cheap shot. The ad should have been directed at the Bush Administration whose unimaginable stupidity and cavalier attitude toward the rest of the world gives credence to the belief that George W. Bush in indeed the worst president in the 225 year history of this country. They lied us into a war, structured it so that we can’t win, invaded the wrong country, killed the wrong dictator, squandered untold billions in treasure and spilled untold buckets’ of our countrymen’s blood all in the futile pursuit of an inchoate and unreachable goal, namely, “victory”. My question remains: How will we know when we’ve won? And what, pray, will be the spoils?

Steve