Webster's New World Dictionary - Third College Edition:
whore n. 1 PROSTITUTE
prostitute n. 2 to sell (oneself, one's artistic or moral integrity, etc.) for low and unworthy purposes
The September Irag update (as brought to you by the White House and polished up with a dash of legitimacy from Gen. Petraeus who will trot it over to Congress) is in some ways a turning point. Not for us, not for the White House, but for Gen. Petraeus himself. He will have to decide if he, too, will become a White House whore.
So let us go back to the beginning of this US debacle called the Iraq War, before thousands of American deaths, tens of thousands of American wounded; before millions of Iraqi civilians were killed, wounded, or displaced. The beginning. The Iraq War may have been on the neo-con drawing board for a long time, but it wouldn't have gone any further without the first, great White House whore. Colin Powell. (General Colin Powell's bio) Go ahead read it - it's quite a read.
An extraordinary man, a man many of us believed represented a great soldier-statesman. Many of us thought he was of man of honor, a man of integrity, an honest man. We believed in him and thought that he would be the only person in Bush's White House that we could trust. A man who could give this Oct., 2001 address before the Senate International Relations Committee. It's all about Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden, including this:
We are also working hard, Mr. Chairman, to deal with the public diplomacy aspects of this crisis. We want to get the message out that Usama bin Laden is evil, his action is evil. One of the problems we have is that out in the street, as they say, below the level of government, there are a number of citizens in Muslim countries who look at us as the aggressor. We're not the aggressor; we have never gone to attack any Islamic country. We have never gone to invade any Muslim people. We have never gone to subject them; we have gone to the Gulf to rescue Kuwait from Iraq. We are there as a force for stability, a force that protects the people of the region. And we have to do a better job at making our case, and we are hard at work doing that.
Then leap ahead to 2003 transcript of Powell's speech before the UN to that moment when we were glued to our TVs watching the now infamous presentation to the UN. Go ahead, read the whole transcript again, you may not have revisited this one for awhile.
I may have known that Bush and Cheney with their merry band of neo-cons couldn't be trusted, but I believed Gen. Powell, because I believed he was a good, honest man who would never lie to the American public and the leaders of the world. Never. I believed because I wanted to believe in him. For me, this illusion lasted about a day, but for others, a week, a month, more; long enough to persuade Congress, the American people?
Yes, indeed the first, great White House whore. (Of course, he finally did get around to retiring - more than a day late and a dollar short)
(And many more minor whores later) this brings us to this September 2007 - General David Petraeus. Gen. Petraeus's bio This is impressive - read this one, too. Gen. Wesley Clark described him at YearlyKos as a "good man". Are you, sir? Are you honorable, trustworthy? Is your first duty to uphold the Constitution and your commitment to "we, the people"? Will you come before Congress and the American people and lie? Lies of commission - lies of omission, they're still lies.
Your turning point, sir. If you are brave enough to give your very life for our country, are you brave enough to risk your job for the truth?
Note: Sorry to be rude, but got to run to work until 4:30 or so, but will be back later to respond.