The Decision Maker

The Senate voted to approve David Petraeus’s promotion to general (he will always be Colonel Comb-over to me) and to be Commander of the Multi-National Force Iraq. So there was a press conference with the Decision Maker (he will always be Chimpy to me), who proclaimed, “And in that I’m the decision maker, I had to come up with a way forward that precluded disaster. In other words, I had to think about what’s likely to work. ... And the implementor of that plan is going to be General Petraeus.”


The D.M. was amazed: “One of the amazing things about our country is that we’ve got military folks who volunteer to go into a tough zone to protect the American people from future harm, and they’ve got families who stand by them.” Yes, isn’t it amazing, and indeed an amazing thing unique to our country, that “military folks,” “whether you be a general or a private,” have families, when all other countries grow their soldiers in laboratories.

The Decision Maker scoffs in the face of non-binding resolutions: “One of the things I’ve found in Congress is that most people recognize that failure would be a disaster for the United States. ... I understand, like many in Congress understand, success is very important for the security of the country.” So what I think he’s saying – and see if you can follow this – is that failure is bad and success is good.

Asked about his order to assassinate Iranians inside Iraq, or as he termed it, “helping ourselves in Iraq by stopping outside influence from killing our soldiers,” D.M. Bush said, “We believe that we can solve our problems with Iran diplomatically”. Yes, shoot-to-kill orders are the first thing they teach you in diplomat school.

D.M. Bush knows what the Iranians really want better than the Iranians themselves do, he’s Just. That. Good. “As you know, the Iranians, for example, think they want to have a nuclear weapon.” Also, “we want their mothers to be able to raise their children in a hopeful society.” Their fathers, on the other hand, we may have to kill. “My problem is with a government that takes actions that end up isolating their people and ends up denying the Iranian people their true place in the world, driving taxis and running 7-11’s.” I may have added that last clause.