Petraeus or Betray Us?

The text reads:

General Petraeus or General Betray Us?
Cooking the Books for the White House

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was "tangible progress" in Iraq and that "Iraqi leaders are stepping forward." And last week Petraeus, the architext of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, "We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress." Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That's because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don't count. The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you're shot in the back of the head -- not the front. According to the Associated Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we've been there. We'll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won't hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed. Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops. But we won't hear what Americans are desperate to hear: a timetable for withdrawing all our troops. General Petraeus has actually said American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years. Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.

This ad was placed in the New York Times on September 10 by liberal anti-war group MoveOn.org. While it attempted to draw attention to the allegedly skewed facts of Patraeus' report to Congress, the ad instead "angered Republicans." Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, a presidential candidate, brought the ad to the September 10 Patraeus hearing and waved it in the air, telling lawmakers he was "irritated" by it. Senator Gordon Smith, one of the few Republican senators who supports legislation ordering troop withdrawals, told reporters that "Petraeus' testimony and the MoveOn.org ad were the two biggest factors in keeping Republicans from breaking ranks with the president: Petraeus' testimony because it was persuasive and the MoveOn ad because it went too far by attacking a popular uniformed officer" (breitbart.com).

While attempting to utilize both logos and pathos (by making the public question whether or not they were being betrayed by a trusted official), MoveOn.org's piece of visual/verbal rhetoric also had the effect of evoking anger from public officials to the point where the very next week they voted 72-25 to officially condemn the ad. This reaction of "how dare Americans question what we are telling them" seems frighteningly Big Brotherish to me, and almost a violation of the very freedoms that the troops in Iraq are supposedly fighting to defend.

Unfortunately, this piece of rhetoric also served as "a life raft for the Republican party as the war debate kicked into high gear. With several Republicans opposed to President Bush's war strategy, GOP members were able to put aside their differences and rally around their disapproval of the ad" (USA Today). It seems a shame to me that the same passion and fervor in developing and passing legislation could not be applied to more important issues, but perhaps this was also MoveOn.org's point--that the U.S. government cares more about its image than getting anything real accomplished. But, on the other hand, does a piece of rhetoric that serves to unite the very people it is speaking out against truly serve its purpose?