the cemetery that she's buried in was in my company's AO...it's right across the street from the turkish embassy, which is unfortunate - many of the headstones were flattened by a couple of VBIEDs directed at the embassy. last i was there, the cemetery was guarded by a contractor (read: local shmoe) for the ministry of interior and was in desperate need of some TLC.

the majority of the people buried in the cemetery are british soldiers that died during the mesopotamian campaign of WWI. walking through the graveyard in full kit was a weird experience - kipling-esque, you might say. sad to think there there are a bunch of tommy atkins buried in a foreign land, all but forgotten.

If Lt. John Allen walked into my office right now I wouldn’t know whether to congratulate him on his selection to succeed Petraeus or give him my condolences? However, as Tom states in 2002 he was made the 79th Commandant of the USNA, which was an inspired appointment, good for both the Navy and Marine Corps.

Petraus did not have a long tenure as the commander of CENTCOM. Rather than being the CJCS, any chance he coule get another COCOM? any rumors abound?

The Republican nomination for President of the United States is his for the asking. Why would he want to be National Security Advisor for a president who does not share most of his beliefs?

Ricks,

Why didn't you ever complain about Bush not listening to his military commanders and appointing empty suits like Rice and Hadley as National Security Advisers?

Why didn't you ever take Rummy and Cheney to task for their disastrous views?

When O' when will the Village stop with their Petraeus crush?

He's not even that cute.

He's not leaving USFOR-A because he's tired, he' leaving because he knows COIN won't succeed.

If Petraeus wants to resign, fine, but it seems way premature to give him a promotion.

Let him complete the task that he was so insistent that we take on.

"...(What is that verb tense-"if he hadn't . . . he would have liked to have been"-past conditional subjunctive?..."

The subjunctive mood is intended to capture a sense of conditionality in English. The best of way of doing that in the sentence you reference is likely: "Were he not ... he would have liked to have been etc,." which expresses the past subjunctive The sentence as presented uses the past perfect tense in the indicative mood, which refers to time, not condition.

Anyway, if Allen is such a follower of Bell, hopefully he realizes that she knows the British made a perfect pig's breakfast of the Middle East despite their best efforts. Undoubtedly, that realization did much to motivate her suicide after returning from Mesopotamia.

It will his worst mistake if President Obama appoints General Petraeus as National Security Advisor as recommended by Thomas Ricks.

Petraeus is an apologist for Pakistan’s General Kayani who has been continuing Musharraf’s duplicitous policy of ‘running with the hares while hunting with the hounds’.

Defense Secretary Gates has sought to justify Pakistan’s terrorist connections, alluding to a “deficit of trust” between Washington, DC and Islamabad. Mr Gates also said there was “some justification” for Pakistan's concerns about past American policies. Gen David Patraeus, rushed in with an apologia for his Pakistani friends, by claiming that while Faisal was inspired by militants in Pakistan, he did not necessarily have contacts with the militants. Both Adm Mike Mullen and Gen Patraeus fancy themselves to be “soldier statesmen” a la Gen Dwight Eisenhower. Adm Mullen has visited Pakistan 15 times and Gen Patraeus no less frequently. Both evidently have high opinions of their abilities to persuade Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to crack down on the Haqqani network in North Waziristan and the Taliban’s Mullah Omar-led Quetta Shura.

For some diabolical reason, Gates, Mullen, Petraeus & Company has split the Taliban into the Afghan and Pakistani parts even though they are two peas of the same pod. The US military is going after the Pakistani Taliban, while it encourages the Pakistani intelligence to continue to shelter the entire top Afghan Taliban leadership in Baluchistan province. Mullah Muhammad Omar and other members of the Taliban's inner shura (council) have been ensconced for years in the Quetta area.

As General McChrystal reported in his assessment of August, 2009 to the President: ‘The Quetta Shura Taliban (QST) based in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, is the No. 1 threat to US/NATO mission in Afghanistan. At the operational level, the Quetta Shura conducts a formal campaign review each winter, after which Mullah Mohammed Omar (Afghan Taliban Chief) announces his guidance and intent for the coming year‘.

However US drones have targeted militants in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), but not the Afghan Taliban leadership operating with impunity from Baluchistan. US ground-commando raids also have spared the Afghan Taliban's command-and-control network in Baluchistan.

If Obama does accept Rick’s advice, it will just hasten the day of US departure and handover of Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Failure of current US Afghan mission can be largely laid at the door steps of Gates, Petraeus, Mullen and company.

She never got lost or confused with what was in front of her.

If Allen can start without all the baggage of today's and yesterday's confusions and dead ends, the change will be welcome.

PS: Once we get beyond that "first draft" of history, I really don't think Petreaus, in practice, was so wedded to COIN as has been reported. It was a tool, but not the primary one.

General Zinni. Or is the current administration afraid to use him because he will be no kinder to them than he was to Bush et al when he called them on their foolish and incompetent b.s.? From Mr. Ricks's book it seems as though he had a good relationship with Clinton's White House. Clearly this country will need Middle East experts as well as Asia-Pacific experts for the foreseeable future.

is a good man and a terrific leader.

not that fannie mae lobbyists are necessarily [morally] qualified to fill any job, but the only thing obama got from listening to his military commanders was an open-ended commitment a place that appears to have virtually no significance. The incest between the Pakistani state and its terrorist proxies has left it tottering, with terrorist havens in the largest cities and expanding. Pakistan is the prize--not Afghanistan. As long as Afghanistan hangs over its head like the sword of Damocles, none of the region's political problems will be resolved. Unfortunately, the only solution to these problems is some sort of political compromise. Military progress can produce political progress, but there is no evidence that Afghanistan is about to bear any military progress. None of the actors in the region are willing to compromise because none of them are strong enough to do so. How we can attempt to cultivate India as a major future ally, antagonize Karzai, and inflame Pakistani public opinion all while trying to "stabilize" a devastating middle-aged war I will never understand. Either way, this entire adventure is beginning to look more and more like Iraq. We should have left right when Osama crossed the border (and probably never returned).

I think it's a subjunctive contrary to fact construction . . . at least in latin

The sooner that David Petraeus is out of uniform the better we and the military will be. The greatest danger that he has always represented for our endeavor in Afghanistan is that he truly be...lieves it is possible for the U.S. to prevail there, and is bound and determined to prove it regardless of the ultimate cost in blood and treasure. While it pains me deeply to state this, it will never be possible for us to accomplish our stated goal of creating and nurturing a stable Afghanistan that no longer represents any future threat to the West. And as I am probably the only one commenting here who actually has two years of intense, daily up-close and personal experience living and working with Pashtuns (or Pathans as we called them then), let me state that they are never going to come around to forgiving and accepting our support for their Northern Alliance enemies, even after the good will we earned by our support for them against the Soviets. When we leave, and we WILL leave soon, Afghanistan will once again revert into a warloard-dominated narco-state and descend back into civil war. The only question remaining will be how many more names we will have to engrave on a future monument. I cry too many tears already for all those who have sacrificed, and I'll be damned if I'll silently stand by and let folks like Petraeus and his fan-boy media acolytes like Tom Ricks continue to beat the drum that success is possible if we just stay the course. Saw that story already on the Western Front.

The military mission in Afghanistan, like every military endeavor in that region throughout human history, has been and remains complex with results that take decades to measure if not more. These two Generals are incredible examples of the very best leadership our nation has and have sacrificed much to change outcomes in Afghanistan for the better. Neither chose this campaign or these battlefields but they are applying every waking moment and their seemingly inexhaustible energies to seeking the best outcomes in impossible circumstances.

It is an honor to wake up every day in a nation where anyone can turn on their computer and take these two 'giants' to task before brewing the morning coffee. To be clear, even the most disrespectful in the blogs and beyond, should know that it is heroic men and women of action and conviction like Gen Petraeus and Lt Gen Allen, who remain vanguards of these liberties.

As an aside, anyone who believes Gen Petraeus is worn out, clearly does not know Gen Petraeus...that notion is just silly.