General David Petraeus, director of the CIA, is forced to resign after it is discovered that he has been having an affair. No mention is made of his activities as the head of an agency that overthrows democratically-elected governments, spies on American citizens, and assassinates innocent people with drone planes.
Say It Ain’t So, Ho!
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Jesus will forgive his anti-family, anti-marriage activities. He’s a hero
Dear John – I am glad to hear that a religious person can put aside his reactive beliefs for a moment to believe that a fictitious person may forgive him, but I really wonder why a religious person would allow him forgivenes for his involvement in the deaths of so many innocent people – you know, the ‘collateral deaths’ that we so sadly forget as ‘necessary”? Why do so many of our worst criminals (like Bush and Cheney) get a pass on ruining families and killing innocent people? Why do we have to keep throwing out babies with the bathwater?
Rikster: I have tried posting links on the New York Times comment space to Mr Rall’s link that 98% of the deaths caused by the US in the War on Terror were innocents. The response was overwhelming: a tiny number of innocents MIGHT have been killed as the US killed terrorists, but the deaths of those innocents were entirely the responsibility of the terrorists!
I mentioned that Mr Rall said that Stanford said that 98% were innocents to an Irish priest, and the priest agreed with the US commentators that the US could not have killed more than a miniscule number of innocents, and those were necessary collateral damage in the War on Terror.
Everyone agrees that the US is doing the Right Thing, except for Mr Rall and people like the Rikster.
And when everyone agrees the current administration is doing the right thing, revolution is impossible. Real change is impossible. And so we continue to continue to pretend…
The only question is: how many generations will pass before the REAL reason is known for the downfall of General David “PR-Master” Petraeus.
(The lip prints on the cheek are exquisite!)
Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Greg Jaffe have published an interesting study of the life-style of US four-star generals in today’s WaPo (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/petraeus-scandal-puts-four-star-general-lifestyle-under-scrutiny/2012/11/17/33a14f48-3043-11e2-a30e-5ca76eeec857_story.html). Wonder if this was the sort of thing to which Willard was referring when he talked about the «entitled» 47 % always looking for government handouts ?…
Henri
The article DIDN’T say that 98% were civilians. It said that 2% were high value targets and 40% were civilians. I suppose that implies that 58% were low-value targets, whatever that means.
Not that getting your numbers right will help much in arguing against the gung-ho mentality you describe.