You Can Question General Petraeus at St. Anselms This Wednesday

Friday, March 19, 2010 — CENTCOM Commander General David Petraeus (who has denied any Presidential ambitions) “will Hold a Conversation with the Community … about the surge in Iraq and the role of American forces overseas,” as a guest of The New Hampshire Institute of Politics (NHIOP), at St. Anselm’s in Manchester this coming Wednesday, March 24th.

“Members of the community,” we’re told officially, “are invited to help shape that conversation by suggesting questions for the general. The event will be recorded by Comcast and made available through On Demand at a date to be announced.”

“Questions should be submitted by Monday, March 22, on the online form found at www.anselm.edu/nhiop. Look for the link accompanying the picture of General Petraeus. Every suggestion will be read and may influence the course of the conversation.”

Sounds promising, but …

“General Petraeus will speak at 6 p.m. at the Dana Center to an audience of Saint Anselm faculty, students, staff and members of the community. Attendance is by invitation only and all tickets to have been distributed.”

Jeez … Not easy to hack through that last alleged sentence, but it looks like it may be difficult for disgruntled veterans to query The Man directly. The situation may require field expedients.

We’re grateful to Veteran for Peace Tom Lee — who won’t be able to query the General because he’s in El Salvador, trying to undo the damage done by St. Ronnie, and to Will Thomas, NH VfP coordinator, for getting this to us, so we can get it to you.

We’re grateful to Will Thomas for forwarding this information, originally sent to him by retired St. Anselm’s professor Tom Lee, Will is the one in El Salvador. He’s there, he explains, “to remember or commemorate the death of Archbishop Óscar Romero [March 24] 1980 — killed by Salvadorans trained at the [U.S. Department of Defense’s] School of the Americas … the bullet that killed Romero [being] one of many supplied to the Salvadoran military by the U.S. Also, we are meeting with anti-mining activists in El Salvador, three of whom have been killed. I am with CIS and with Father Roy Bourgeois of SOA Watch. Wage Peace!”