Petraeus speech in Seattle
Pakphile - the Seattle speech July 9th is at http://tvw.org and search for Petraeus.
It is also in the archives on CSPAN2.
Petraeus states many times in his dissertation that the military has adopted, since the close of the Vietnam War, a consensus that no war should be fought unless it is 1) supported by the Americn People, 2) has clear objectives that are achievable in a fairly short period of time before the country loses support, 3) the military is provided the resources and the freedom of tactics to win the war.
I (and others in the antiwar movement) have been saying for decades, they need to add several more requirements, 1) that the war ought to be lawful under both domestic law and treaties we have signed; i.e., the military should not obey illegal orders from the President, AND, 2) that the war ought to be, furthermore, a just war under some comprehensible scheme that would be discussed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war)
And of course both of these new requirements imply an end to wars other than self defense of the territory that is our jurisdiction, wars for economic reasons, or so-called "national interests". Both of these would repudiate the very longrunning tradition and practice of preemptive war (containment of communiism, domino theory, or today's preemptive "GWOT")
So, I would hope that some future Petraeus will write dissertations on the Iraq Syndrome, just as the Vietnam syndrome appeared, and that we succeed in defining it, instead of the neocons or whoever their successors may be in the military and policy establishment. Because, these are the reasons we are opposed to US wars-- they are immoral and cruel, and motivated by greed. They don't reflect my moral values and I oppose them. And so does most of the world.
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