nancyellen879:

I first heard about this play on Petraeus's name about a month ago, before he came to Washington to give his "report" and before MoveOn.org took out its ad. The reference was to the fact that a lot of people in the Pentagon were getting mightily ticked off at Petraeus for towing Bush's line and not standing up for the welfare of the troops.

Last Wednesday, karrsic pointed to rightwingers calling him "Betrayus" because of his insistence on adhering to the rule of law, rather than carelessly killing civilians.

karrsic's comment:

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/12/klein/permalink/e3f1403ceb806ec2d090ee0074ebd3a2.html

The article he points to is here:

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/values-message.htm

It's not the article, but the comment thread that has the "Betrayus" references:

Alex Says:

I see now why he has gained the nickname General Betrayus.

He is nothing but a politician in a suit who will not even stand behind his troops.

After reading what he wrote I have come to realize that the only possible outcome is us losing just like we lost in Vietnam (only worst).

May 14th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

And:

Michel Says:

Hi Micheael: I’m a supporter of you and what you do. Thank you.

As for our new “top” commander - For Patraeus (Rhymes with “Betray - Us”) to come out at this time and take point for the “moral equivalency” crowd is outrageous. While we have our boys dying over in Iraq, dodging bullets, IEDs and heart pounding house-to-house fighting - they have the added burden of wondering if their next move on the battle-field will result in getting courts-martialed or sued.

What Patraeus is doing is basically carrying the water for the Bush Administration. Bush has put someone in that position who will tow the line and throw our warriors under the bus for the sake of PR and expediency.

I would have rather heard him to our guys to go out and do what our soldiers are there to do: Kill the enemy and break things.

Bush should pardon every single one of the men who are being charged.

God bless our troops!

May 14th, 2007 at 6:35 pm

And:

Henry Russell Says:

Gen. Betrayus,

Kill them all, let God sort them out. I am not willing to quietly nor without motion let my son die in this sham without full and complete retribution. War is simply that- a total absence of morality. You sir are a coward at best also right along with Pres. Bush- and he has been addressed as so by myself.

I am a card carrying patriot and I wish nothing less than total victory. That requires total war. Follow???

If I sir have someone being held or in harm’s way and a person(s) have information that would prevent the harm or disclose the culprits, they will pay- that old absence of morality thing. It won’t be with a criminal trial.

Scott above has a legitimate query. Why not make them talk.

Read your instruction book- The Word of God. It does have battlefield instructions- follow them and you never lose. Gotta read it first.HUH?

May 14th, 2007 at 8:25 pm

And:

Tom Walsh Says:

It just drives me crazy to think that this is how Betrayus wants to wage war. The ragheads are just laughing their camels asses off. 5 men blown to pieces results in a repair bill from the local Al Queda branch secretary and the CO of the guys blown up pays in cash. We need generals like Curtis le May who knew how to wage war. Killing millions of Japanese and Korean civilians didn’t bother him in the least. Falluja and Ramadi should have been carpet bombed years ago to set the tone. All this bullshit pussyfooting about is just getting more troops killed and maimed. I can’t believe that Yon supports this betrayus garbage. Set the dogs of war loose. Show the ragheads what real war is. What do you have a 500 billionyear military for?

May 15th, 2007 at 3:40 pm

Enlightening reading, indeed.

Pedinska:

MoveOn and foreign funding claim

They get a LOT of their money from overseas. Why not let the foreigners pay for it. After all, they'll definitely benefit from it.

--Anonymous

Can you give us a source for this little nugget you just dropped?

It's a faith-based thing, you wouldn't understand.

Just like the conservatives' belief that the Bavarian Illuminati were the cause of the French Revolution.

Or LBJ's refusal to believe when J. Edgar Hoover told him there was no foreign financing of the anti-war movement.

thomas c's comments about Richard Cohen illustrate exactly what I was talking about in terms of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. Cohen still holds some nominally liberal views. But he holds them within a larger existential context that is entirely defined by conservatives.

Thus, a completely different set of absolute moral imperatives kicks in when Petraes is being questioned, rather than Kerry. Why? Because those are the sets of moral imperatives that the conservsatives decress. That's all there is to it. He has completely internalized the conservative double-standard. He is not just a passive victim, but an active enforcer of their worldview.