Politics

General Betray Us?

Politics reached a new low in the run-up to General Petreaus’ testimony before Congress yesterday. The editors at The Wall Street Journal excoriated the slanderous tactics used against Petreaus and have called for congressional Democrats to repudiate MoveOn.org’s full-page ad in The New York Times which renamed the general “General Betray Us.”

Norman Podhoretz gives a good account of the “Vietnam syndrome” that has given birth to the cynicism that seems to be the order of the day in politics. In “America the Ugly,” he writes:

“It is impossible at this point to predict how and when the battle of Iraq will end. But from the vitriolic debates it has unleashed we can already say for certain that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, did not do to the Vietnam syndrome what Pearl Harbor did to the old isolationism. The Vietnam syndrome is back and it means to have its way. But is it strong enough in its present incarnation to do what it did to the honor of this country in 1975? Well acquainted though I am with its malignant power, I still believe that it will ultimately be overcome by the forces opposed to it in the war at home. Even so, I cannot deny that this question still hangs ominously in the air and will not be answered before more damage is done to the long struggle against Islamofascism into which we were blasted six years ago and that I persist in calling World War IV.”

One Comment

  • Don P-

    What I find to be sick is that so many on the left and the so-called leaders of that party in congress have invested so much in failure and defeat to our armed forces and to our country…. They know the surge has brought positive results on the battlfield, so what do they do; move the goalposts… Hey the benchmarks are not there: correct.. That was not the purpose of the surge… These frauds know this…If we could go back intime these Fake Phony Frauds would be lined up against the wall and shot for treason…. Too bad we don’t have a time machine………

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