Last March General David Petraeus, then head of Central Command, sought to undercut his own testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that was critical of Israel by intriguing with a rightwing writer to put out a different story, in emails obtained by Mondoweiss.
The emails show Petraeus encouraging Max Boot of Commentary to write a story — and offering the neoconservative writer choice details about his views on the Holocaust:
Does it help if folks know that I hosted Elie Wiesel and his wife at our quarters last Sun night?! And that I will be the speaker at the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps in mid-Apr at the Capitol Dome…
Petraeus passed the emails along himself through his own carelessness last March. He pasted a Boot column from Commentary‘s blog into in an “FYI” email he sent to an activist who is highly critical of the U.S.’s special relationship with Israel. Some of the general’s emails to Boot were attached to the bottom of the story. The activist, James Morris, shared the emails with me.
I would suggest that Petraeus had—before the McChrystal fiasco– a lot at stake in Mideast security for his Petraeus-in-History image. So that Israeli expansion not undo the Iraq War illusion of “surge victory” he needed to prove that he can reign in Israel’s military massacre of innocent civilians in the name of fighting terrorism. The only way that US forces can impose themselves on Arabs is with Israel as part of the imposed-on mix. In truth, there is no way to reconcile the Petraeus need for Arab cooperation and toleration of American meddling in their security affairs so long as Israel is exempt. Yet Israel sees him as another Zinni that it cannot pressure as it pressures American politicians. An utterly political general with post-military political ambitions Petraeus was setting the scene for his CENTCOM successors. But now that he’s been demoted, replacing McChrystal, his protégée, and exiled to KabulHQ, he’s going to need friends and we can well expect him to butter the neocons with slobbering such as those exhibited in the MONDOWEISS obtained e-mails
Not a surprise — I recall the reports of the confrontation between Petraeus and Admiral William J. Fallon, his then commanding officer at CENTCOM in 2007, where the latter berated him as a sychophant and “an ass-kissing little chickenshit”. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39235 Playing to both sides of the issue is par for his kind.
Fallon’s early departure from his CENTCOM command was the sequel. Pity America when Petraeus becomes president.
Can we be an honest broker in the Middle East?
“…there is no way to reconcile the Petraeus need for Arab cooperation and toleration of American meddling in their security affairs so long as Israel is exempt.” This statement can be expanded to: There is no way to reconcile the Petraeus need for the Middle Eastern cooperation and toleration of American meddling in their security affairs so long as Israel is exempt. Can our government project Pro-American posture over those of Pro-Israel?
Pro-Israel: “Russia must stop selling defensive weapons to Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and the like. These defenses would make harder for Israel to bomb Syria and Iran. “Pro American said: “May be we could do the same and stop selling arms to Egypt and Saudi, Israel, and too many other nations to mention.” But US Congress said: “We can’t do that!”
Pro American said: “We could also stop arming Israel with our latest offensive armaments and ships and planes capable to carrying nuclear bombs. Germany donated nuclear capable submarine to Israel. Germans sold rockets to Sadam to bomb Iranian cities with WMD!” US Congress said: “We can’t do that. We also gave him the knowhow and money to develop the WMD. We can’t say we made mistake, can we?”
Can we apologize for the USS Vincennes murdering 300 passenger of the Iranian airliner? We wanted to teach Iranians a lesson and force them to stop defending themselves against Sadam invasion of their country.
Can we be an honest broker in the Middle East?