Interview with General Petraeus

Coffee Club Newsletter ©
Volume 18, No. 22 - April 5, 2008

Any similarity to persons actually living or events actually happening is coincidental.

TR: Good afternoon. Are you General Petraeus?
DP: Yes sir. Come right in. I'm sorry it's a little warm in here.
TR: Yes. Is it always this hot?
DP: Only when the power grid goes offline, and I'm sorry to say it happens almost every other afternoon.
TR: Even in the Green Zone?
DP: I'm not in charge of the engineers.
TR: It must be very annoying, no?
DP: Well, sure but even Cheney can't do anything about it.
TR: The Vice President?
DP: Yup. He's been here a couple of times and he's felt the heat. He even made a call to one of the generating stations the last time he came by.
TR: So what happened?
DP: They were very polite and reassuring but never gave us any juice.
TR: So you perspire all day long when this happens?
DP: You're being too delicate. We sweat like sick horses. That's what we do.
TR: But still you hang in there.
DP: All in the line of duty.
TR: Following orders.
DP: That's what a soldier's life is about - duty and honor. Doing what's right for your country.
TR: Every soldier in every country believes that.
DP: Essentially - necessarily so. Armies wouldn't exist without the military code. Soldiers are trained to protect their respective sovereign territory, but the training is the same everywhere. Only the sophistication of the weapons differs. The irony is that every soldier and every General hates war.
TR: What if every soldier belonged to the same army?
DP: A World army?
TR: Yes.
DP: That's a pipe dream and very inadvisable and quite impractical and eminently unrealistic.
TR: But you said the training is the same.
DP: With one major exception. We represent opposing teams.
TR: So the duty and honor and glory are the same, but the teams are different?
DP: Certainly. It's been that way for thousands of years. Like the Cowboys and the 49ers - same basic training for each team but with the aim being to win for your respective side. Can you have a game with only one team playing?
TR: No.
DP: That's my point. That's why when an army gets defeated; they can claim heroes on their side, too. There's enough honor and glory and national pride to go around.
TR: But still, doesn't it make sense to fight a war with air conditioning?
DP: War is not about comfort. My troops are sweating even more than I am.
TR: I'm staying inside the Green Zone.
DP: I understand - you're a civilian.
TR: Do you go out among the troops?
DP: Are you kidding? Of course I do. I'd rather talk to them than to the Senators.
TR: Did the recent mortar attacks strike close to your office?
DP: I really can't discuss that. I'm always within earshot of the bombs going off outside the zone. I didn't even notice the attacks.
TR: So you still feel safe?
DP: I feel perfectly safe; safer than on any Los Angeles freeway.
TR: Do you think the shooting will stop soon?
DP: On the freeway?
TR: No, here.
DP: Well, that's what Cheney says.
TR: Do you have to take orders from him?
DP: We strictly follow the chain of command. The President calls the shots. He is very optimistic about our chances here - very optimistic.
TR: What about you?
DP: Well, to be terribly honest, I'm looking forward to the day when I'm home and can look out my window and see my car parked out in the driveway.
TR: What do you drive?
DP: A Hummer, what else?
TR: It must be hard with the price of gas going up. I mean, that's not exactly an economical car.
DP: It's not really a problem. The government covers my gas expense 100%.
TR: Oh.
DP: Nevertheless, better my Hummer there than any Hummer here. I miss my family, relaxing on my cedar deck, kicking back with a cold Corona Light, my library - just everything. My troops do too, of course.
TR: What do you tell them when they ask how much longer...?
DP: I tell them exactly what Dick told me to say: we've got this thing won, just hang in there.
TR: Anything more specific?
DP: Between you and me and the fencepost? We'll be here another forty years.
TR: Whose idea was it to disband the army?
DP: Rumsfeld. He and Bremer orchestrated it. I would never have done that. In the military, humiliating a defeated army and its Generals is against all sense of decency. That's why we're still here. It's like when the Cowboys are up by 35 points against the 49ers late in the fourth quarter and they decide to run up the score for the sheer hell of it.
TR: That will never happen - maybe the other way around.
DP: It was just an example.
TR: Oh.
DP: War is simply here to stay. I wish it weren't that way, but that's the human condition.
TR: But, what if every army from every country, knowing that you all have a code of honor, like a brotherhood, join forces and decide to stage a worldwide coup d'état? You could decide not to fight anymore. Voila, no more war.
DP: My friend, you are so incredibly naïve I'm having trouble grasping it. War is waged in the political arena first, then on the battlefield.
TR: So, that being the case, if every country were a democracy, things would be better?
DP: Not so fast. There are civil wars, too.
TR: So, the situation is truly hopeless?
DP: Well, maybe, just maybe, if everyone were as timid as you....
TR: Thank you sir.
DP: Thank you.