Supplement to GEN Petraeus Testimony to the United States Congress (VIDEO)

Via Matt Burden at Blackfive, JD Johannes (whom you should remember from this post) has supplied us with videos of the Anbar Awakening, which will supplement the testimony that GEN Petraeus will give to the United States Congress today. Well, in a sane world, these videos would be seen leading off every newscast across the nation and the world to supplement the coverage of GEN Petraeus’ testimony. Alas, it is up to us to promote JD Johannes’ videos to get out the facts and context that the mass media and our politicians will undoubtedly leave out in their own so-called reporting.

JD Johannes at Outside the Wire: Petraeus Testimony: My Video Supplement

General David Petraeus will be testifying before Congress today about the effects of the troop surge.

To give the public and interested parties a more tangible view of the effects of the troop surge, I have condensed one of my documentaries, ‘Anbar Awakens‘ and placed it on YouTube. You can watch it below in two parts.

The first steps of the Anbar Awakening preceded the troop surge by several months, but without the surge it is unlikely it would have held firm and expanded.

More importantly, the success of the Awakening combined with the troop surge to spread concerned citizens groups and neighborhood watch groups through large swaths of Iraq.

The condensed version of my documentary will hopefully give a deeper understanding to some parts of General Petraeus’ testimony.

Some who probably still doubt the existence of the Awakening will say this was shot in a back lot in Morrocco, but they will say and do anything to force a defeat in order to maintain their identity–and that is most pernicious form of identity politics.

The full version of this documentary and two others showing the surge from the ground level are available here on DVD.

HERE and HERE are links to his YouTube videos he has posted at his site. But be sure to go visit his site to watch them and read his commentary. And be sure to check out the rest of his site and possibly, if you can afford it, purchase one of his documentary DVDs.


Matt has also posted the transcript of GEN Petraeus’ prepared statements for the United States Congress: General Petraeus Opening Statements