Robert Scheer, an author for the ever-popular moonbat lefty hangout, apparently feels that General David Petraeus has betrayed the nation like MoveOn.org claimed last year. Why? Apparently because Petraeus sides with actually finishing the job in Iraq, instead of advocating a full retreat of his men.

General Betray Us? Of course he has. MoveOn.org can hardly be expected to recycle its slogan from last September, when Gen. David Petraeus testified in support of escalating the U.S. war in Iraq, given the hysterical denunciations that worthy group received at the time. But it was right then–as it would be to repeat the charge now.

By undercutting the widespread support for getting out of Iraq, Petraeus did indeed betray the American public, siding with an enormously unpopular president who wants to stay the course in Iraq for personal and political reasons that run contrary to genuine national security interests. Once again, the president is passing the buck to the uniformed military to justify continuing a ludicrous imperial adventure, and the good general has dutifully performed.

It’s interesting to note that Scheer apparently has a better understanding of what’s in our “national security interests” than the Commanding General, Multi-National Force – Iraq. Or at least he thinks he does.

Does anyone, McCain included, now think we were wrong to bring the troops home from Vietnam–and just why are the dire consequences that McCain now predicts for a withdrawal from Iraq any more plausible?

Not sure McCain’s opinion on leaving ‘Nam, but there’s this from The Nation back in 1999:

Rather than accepting America’s defeat in Vietnam as a humbling one and a fitting end to an arrogant and vainglorious exercise of military power, McCain considers the war in Vietnam to have been a “noble cause,” whose loss might have been avoided but for the timidity of America’s political leaders. Like many Vietnam-era military men, McCain believes that the war could have been won had America sent ground forces into North Vietnam and launched a strategic bombing campaign using B-52s. “That,” says Daniel Ellsberg, the Vietnam-era Defense Department official who leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers, “is an incredibly discredited point of view.” McCain appears unworried by concern that such actions would have led to enormous US casualties and perhaps caused either China or the Soviet Union to enter the war.

He believed our war in Vietnam was a noble cause and one that we lost because our political leaders lacked the fortitude to see it through. Sound familiar?

If I’m reading this right, Scheer wants to know why McCain’s predictions of Iraq getting worse after we leave are plausible. What makes them so? He’s not the only one saying it. Here’s the liberal The New York Times’s John Burns from back in 2007.

LAUER: What do you think happens if there’s a date certain set for that withdrawal?

BURNS: If United States troops stay, there will be mounting casualties and costs for the American taxpayer. If they leave, I think from the perspective of watching this war for four years or more in Baghdad, there’s no doubt that the conflict could get a great deal worse very quickly, and we’d see levels of suffering and of casualties amongst Iraqis that potentially could dwarf the ones we’ve seen to this point.”

And later: “Most would agree there is a civil war, but a countervaling force exercised principally by Americans but also other coalition troops is a very significant factor that leaves the potential for a considerable worsening once you remove that countervaling force. . . Remove that countervaling force and then there will be no limit to this violence.”

Here’s the paper’s editorial board itself on what an early withdrawal will produce:

Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide. Potentially destabilizing refugee flows could hit Jordan and Syria. Iran and Turkey could be tempted to make power grabs. Perhaps most important, the invasion has created a new stronghold from which terrorist activity could proliferate.

Iran has already admitted it intends to fill the gap:

“Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation.”

And now Hamas itself admits that Iran is helping Al Qaeda.