FOUR STARS

by Charles Carreon

American Fight Songs, by Charles Carreon
Charles Carreon, The Arizona Kid
Rage On With Charles at Raging Blog
The Sixth Order, by Charles Carreon
Poetry, by Charles Carreon

Click here to play "Four Stars," sung by Charles Carreon

In an hour of darkness
In an hour of grief
When we look to the news
And find no relief

A clown in the White House
Rules a vampire ball
Where the blood flows freely
Right through the halls

A front man is needed
For the main freak show
So out to the barracks
They presently go

They find a pliable man
With shoulders like stone
Who says what he means
And does what he’s told

And he’s got FOUR STARS
That General Petraeus
He’s got FOUR STARS
That’s four more than you
He’s got FOUR STARS
That’s enough to betray us
He’s got FOUR STARS
So what you gonna do?

When the refugees are in millions
And the prison’s filled with innocents
When car bombs detonate routinely
Still criticism’s unseemly

When a man with a multi-colored map
Sits down and tells you where it’s at
And answers every question
In just the perfect way
You gotta say

That’s why he’s got
FOUR STARS
Good ole General Petraeus
He’s got FOUR STARS
What’s that mean to you?
He’s got FOUR STARS
That’s enough to betray us
He’s got FOUR STARS
Just enough to pull us through

When history judges men
It does so with a mighty pen
A name may be forgotten
Or forever engraved in stone

For villainy, for virtue
For loyalty or treason,
For General Petraeus
They won’t have to find a reason

They’ll say he had
FOUR STARS
That he used to betray us
FOUR STARS
And a shell game on the news
FOUR STARS
Yeah that General Petraeus
He has FOUR STARS
That’s four more than you

_______________

American Buddha Librarian's Comment:

New York Times, September 10, 2007

Cooking the Books for the White House

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts.  In 2004, just before the election, he said there was "tangible progress" in Iraq and that "Iraqi leaders are stepping forward."  And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, "We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress."

Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed.  Yet the General claims a reduction in violence.  That's because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabls on violence.  For example, deaths by car bombs don't count.  The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you're shot in the back of the head -- not the front.  According to the Associated Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we've been there.  We'll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased.  But we won't hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.

Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows:  Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war.  We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops.  But we won't hear what Americans are desperate to hear, a timetable for withdrawing all our troops.  General Petraeus has actually said American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.

Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.

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