radioguy
12-31-2007, 12:19 PM
General Petraeus: man with a message of hope
Last Updated: 12:46am GMT 31/12/2007
The critics said it couldn't be done, but the vision and determination of General David Petraeus have brought greater security and cause for optimism to the people of Iraq. He is The Sunday Telegraph's Person of the Year
EXCERPT
For a man whose critics say he is far too fond of the television cameras, General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, has been rather out of the limelight this Christmas.
The sprightly, media-friendly 55-year-old is not perturbed, however, that his face is no longer number one item on the US networks. As he said last week, where Iraq is concerned, "No news is good news."
Today, we put him in the spotlight again by naming Gen Petraeus as The Sunday Telegraph's Person of the Year, a new annual accolade to recognise outstanding individual achievement.
He has been the man behind the US troop surge over the past 10 months, the last-ditch effort to end Iraq's escalating civil war by putting an extra 28,000 American troops on the ground.
So far, it has achieved what many feared was impossible. Sectarian killings are down. Al-Qaeda is on the run. And the two million Iraqis who fled the country are slowly returning. Progress in Iraq is relative - 538 civilians died last month. But compared with the 3,000 peak of December last year, it offers at least a glimmer of hope.
Nonetheless, why should we choose to nominate Petraeus
There has, after all, been no shortage of other candidates this year. President Nicolas Sarkozy has impressed many with his determination to reform France, while George Osborne reinvigorated politics in this country by daring to put tax cuts back on the agenda - though both men still have much to prove.
There are plenty of brave figures thrust into the limelight who handled themselves with dignity, such as Gillian Gibbons, the teacher jailed in Sudan; the Glasgow airport luggage-handler John Smeaton; and Kate and Gerry McCann. Sporting stars such as Paula Radcliffe and Lewis Hamilton have inspired millions of fans.
There has also been great British military leadership and bravery on display this year, not least in Helmand, where British troops are now fighting a Taliban foe as fierce as anything their American counterparts encountered in Baghdad or Fallujah.
But the reason for picking Petraeus is simple. Iraq, whatever the current crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan, remains the West's biggest foreign policy challenge of this decade, and if he can halt its slide into all-out anarchy, Gen Petraeus may save more than Iraqi lives.
A failed Iraq would not just be a second Vietnam, nor would it just be America's problem.
It would be a symbolic victory for al-Qaeda, a safe haven for jihadists to plot future September 11s and July 7s, and a battleground for a Shia-Sunni struggle that could draw in the entire Middle East. Our future peace and prosperity depend, in part, on fixing this mess. And, a year ago, few had much hope.
To appreciate the scale of the task Gen Petraeus took on, it is necessary to go back to February 22, 2006. Or, as Iraqis now refer to it, their own September 11. That was when Sunni-led terrorists from al-Qaeda blew up the Shia shrine in the city of Samarra, an act of provocation that finally achieved their goal of igniting sectarian civil war.
A year on, an estimated 34,000 people had been killed on either side - some of them members of the warring Sunni and Shia militias, but most innocents tortured and killed at random. US casualties continued to rise, too, but increasingly American troops became the bystanders in a religious conflict that many believed they could no longer tame.
Except, that is, for Gen Petraeus. Despite his well-documented obsession with fitness - he starts his 18-hour days with a five-mile run - he is the opposite of the brawn-over-brain image that has dogged the US military mission in Iraq.
SNIP
But it should not overshadow his achievement this year: he has given another last chance to a country that had long since ceased to expect one. And for that, Gen Petraeus is Person of the Year.
Full Story (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=AA4OSBQXNV5A3QFIQMFCFFWAVCBQ YIV0?xml=/news/2007/12/30/nperson130.xml)
I can't think of a year in recent memory, where there was a more clear cut choice for person of the year. General Patraeus should have been Time's Person of the year, but that wouldn't have set very well with the libs. They instead chose to named a communist, which unfortunately, most on the left probably feel was a more deserving choice.
It's really too bad, that a foreign media outlet had to be the ones to bestow this honor on the General, instead of one of our own outlets.
Last Updated: 12:46am GMT 31/12/2007
The critics said it couldn't be done, but the vision and determination of General David Petraeus have brought greater security and cause for optimism to the people of Iraq. He is The Sunday Telegraph's Person of the Year
EXCERPT
For a man whose critics say he is far too fond of the television cameras, General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, has been rather out of the limelight this Christmas.
The sprightly, media-friendly 55-year-old is not perturbed, however, that his face is no longer number one item on the US networks. As he said last week, where Iraq is concerned, "No news is good news."
Today, we put him in the spotlight again by naming Gen Petraeus as The Sunday Telegraph's Person of the Year, a new annual accolade to recognise outstanding individual achievement.
He has been the man behind the US troop surge over the past 10 months, the last-ditch effort to end Iraq's escalating civil war by putting an extra 28,000 American troops on the ground.
So far, it has achieved what many feared was impossible. Sectarian killings are down. Al-Qaeda is on the run. And the two million Iraqis who fled the country are slowly returning. Progress in Iraq is relative - 538 civilians died last month. But compared with the 3,000 peak of December last year, it offers at least a glimmer of hope.
Nonetheless, why should we choose to nominate Petraeus
There has, after all, been no shortage of other candidates this year. President Nicolas Sarkozy has impressed many with his determination to reform France, while George Osborne reinvigorated politics in this country by daring to put tax cuts back on the agenda - though both men still have much to prove.
There are plenty of brave figures thrust into the limelight who handled themselves with dignity, such as Gillian Gibbons, the teacher jailed in Sudan; the Glasgow airport luggage-handler John Smeaton; and Kate and Gerry McCann. Sporting stars such as Paula Radcliffe and Lewis Hamilton have inspired millions of fans.
There has also been great British military leadership and bravery on display this year, not least in Helmand, where British troops are now fighting a Taliban foe as fierce as anything their American counterparts encountered in Baghdad or Fallujah.
But the reason for picking Petraeus is simple. Iraq, whatever the current crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan, remains the West's biggest foreign policy challenge of this decade, and if he can halt its slide into all-out anarchy, Gen Petraeus may save more than Iraqi lives.
A failed Iraq would not just be a second Vietnam, nor would it just be America's problem.
It would be a symbolic victory for al-Qaeda, a safe haven for jihadists to plot future September 11s and July 7s, and a battleground for a Shia-Sunni struggle that could draw in the entire Middle East. Our future peace and prosperity depend, in part, on fixing this mess. And, a year ago, few had much hope.
To appreciate the scale of the task Gen Petraeus took on, it is necessary to go back to February 22, 2006. Or, as Iraqis now refer to it, their own September 11. That was when Sunni-led terrorists from al-Qaeda blew up the Shia shrine in the city of Samarra, an act of provocation that finally achieved their goal of igniting sectarian civil war.
A year on, an estimated 34,000 people had been killed on either side - some of them members of the warring Sunni and Shia militias, but most innocents tortured and killed at random. US casualties continued to rise, too, but increasingly American troops became the bystanders in a religious conflict that many believed they could no longer tame.
Except, that is, for Gen Petraeus. Despite his well-documented obsession with fitness - he starts his 18-hour days with a five-mile run - he is the opposite of the brawn-over-brain image that has dogged the US military mission in Iraq.
SNIP
But it should not overshadow his achievement this year: he has given another last chance to a country that had long since ceased to expect one. And for that, Gen Petraeus is Person of the Year.
Full Story (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=AA4OSBQXNV5A3QFIQMFCFFWAVCBQ YIV0?xml=/news/2007/12/30/nperson130.xml)
I can't think of a year in recent memory, where there was a more clear cut choice for person of the year. General Patraeus should have been Time's Person of the year, but that wouldn't have set very well with the libs. They instead chose to named a communist, which unfortunately, most on the left probably feel was a more deserving choice.
It's really too bad, that a foreign media outlet had to be the ones to bestow this honor on the General, instead of one of our own outlets.