but colonel andrew basevich, let me start with you. what is your overall reaction to this, to the petraeus story, the potential involvement of general allen-- although we don't know about that. how are you taking this all in in? >> well, i think it's very useful to be reminddrom ti to time that four-star generals are not gods but mere mortals. and as mortals ourselves, perhaps we can, therefore, assess their performance. stand in judgment. and if you consider the performance of senior american military leaders over the past ten years of war, it seems to me that it's been rather disappointing. the expectation that when the -- when we send u.s. forces to fight that they will achieve victory, that expectation has not been met. and we've ended up with two very long wars one of which has ended in something other than victory-- i'm referring to iraq-- and a second war-- afghanistan-- which will ultimately end and nobody expects it's going to end in victory. it seems to me it's fair to ask why have we gotten such disappointing results after s