GEN Petraeus on Relationships
Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 10:57PM Bottom Line Up Front: We’re winning in Iraq, “one Beanie Baby at a time”
This is the most interesting interview I’ve ever seen with GEN Petraeus. Compliments of the Pentagon Channel comes this on-the-street-of-Baghdad dialogue with America’s top commander in Iraq as he does what he does best: wins people over.
The interviewer said what most allude to but don’t actually come out and say: "GEN Petraeus, you’re like a rock star around here!" This led to the predictably humble reaction by the calm and collected commander and a fascinating discourse about what makes the world goes around: RELATIONSHIPS.
Q: You’re kinda like a rock star walking down the streets here. You are! Kids like lookin’ at ya, people like talkin’ to ya, you go outta your way to reach out and communicate the language of the person you are… I get the impression you’re serving as an example of “this is the value of relationships…..”
PETRAEUS: ….Relationships are s what this is all about..
The General, philosopher and intellectual is also a friend. Great stuff.
THIS VIDEO is the same interview with an extra 60 seconds at the beginning as GEN Petraeus discusses how relationships literally changed the course of the war. He said in another interview that “soldiers cannot commute to the war”, referring to the necessity for troops to live among the population. He describes how these forged friendships win the war by building trust that encourages Iraqis to give intelligence to Coalition Forces and help defeat the enemy.
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Reader Comments (7)
Amy,can you email me the code for that great clip, heh, Gen. Petreaus walking aounnd with a soft hat. He definately 'broke the code' in how to reach the Arabs. Oh and a belated Cheers to you and yours for the New Year, Lots of good news coming from the front.
Goat, I keep everything in my You Tube account as well (accessible by searching You Tube bottomlineupfront or my sidebar) and the codes in these videos is the 3rd option to the left of the Blip.TV logo on the rigth bottom of the video. But I'll e-mail it to you!
He is right, relationships are what it's all about. I realized this after the accident. Regardless of how fragile life is, sometimes we walk away from something we should not have been able to. That is when you find out how deep or shallow you were with your relationships. Boy was I guilty of the latter in too many cases. Lesson learned: never blow off the chance to shore up your relationships.
Admittedly this is only tangentially related to the subject at hand, but I need to say it.
J Rob, thank God you and your family are alright. Petraeus is right; relationships are the basis for which we do everything in life. I think his comments are timely, all things considered.
Then, of course, there's the relationship with the houseful of AQ awaiting the arrival of a Hellfire or JDAM or Excalibur. :)
Best relationships I've ever seen, right up until 9 Soldiers were killed and 40,000 lbs of bombs dropped.
Your so right, it's going so well.
It is going well, as far as wars are concerned. We have the lowest casualty rate of any war besides the 1st Gulf War, and we know how THAT turned out.