General David Petraeus

Marco_Simone SG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petraeus

Seems to be a really awesome guy.

Potential presidency candidate in 2012.

Arapahoe SG

please lah.....uncle sam and singapore have very different view on General holding public offices.

tERMINATOR20000000 SG

wat bout president eisenhower???he was general in chsrged of dday n europe.general patton was his subordinate.its up to the usa peoples vote.

Acidshuriken SG

wat bout president eisenhower???he was general in chsrged of dday n europe.general patton was his subordinate.its up to the usa peoples vote.

and he wasn't a great prez. miliary men entering politics...sounds like bad idea, from junta to democracies.

Arapahoe SG

It is true that most US public elected officiers may have military experience but they don't choose to stay on as career. As u need to spend enough time in the various legislature, senate to understand how to work within the US govt.

The other aspect is that US public never like military power to be mixed with politics. especially for someone to jump from military general to held public office. This is one area that is diff from SG Govt.

The Gen can probably achieve much and is needed in Pentagon. Not sure if he is going to be the future joint chief.

weasel1962 SG

Interesting to note that there were 12 US presidents who were former generals. Washington, Jackson, Pierce, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Grant, Taylor, the two Harrisons, Eisenhower and Johnson (the earlier one).

Theodore Roosevelt was a lieutenant colonel and most other presidents have served in the forces eg Carter, Kennedy, Elder Bush etc. I count 5 colonels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Presidents_by_military_service

Only 2 recent presidents since FDR did not have mil service (Clinton and Obama).

Notable generals that could have been prez were MacArthur (Roosevelt blind-sided him) and Powell (promoted to sec of state and relegated to dummy postbox during Bush jnr presidency)