In her last decade on earth, the Queen Mother joined Mother Teresa as the only two people no one on earth was ever allowed to say anything bad about. Even when she was photographed picking her nose, everyone just smiled and acted nice.

Until recently, nobody in America has come close to such reverence. Not Jacqueline Kennedy. Not Elizabeth Taylor. And of course, not Angelina Jollie.

Then enters, General David H. Petraeus - the commander of the American troops in Iraq.

General Petraeus’s surge has been credited for the “significant and uneven” reduction in violence in Iraq. Though those well informed will tell you that no country, not even Iraq, has an endless supply of suicide bombers. At one point, scarcity is bound to hits the supply line.

Also, with over three million Iraqis refuges in neighboring countries, there are less fighters, less bombers and less targets. If you want to be mean to the general, you also mention that most of Iraq has essentially been ethnic-cleansed. So with the Shiite enemies, the Sunnis, kicked out, the Shiite paused in their fight before they picked up their guns again – this time fighting themselves. And for the Sunnis, with their neighborhood cleared of the Shiite, they spend time taking on Al Qaeda.

If you really want to be cruel to the general, you mention that he is arming and paying potential fighters $10 a day to play the role of security guards by day, and extortionists by night. Don’t even imagine what role they will play when they stop getting their payments.

It is all good and dandy that General Petraeus agreed to try when many have given up. But General Petraeus is no Mother Teresa. He is no Queen Mother. He should not be treated as such. It is almost an insult to treat a General with such grandma’s glove.

Criticizing a general during war time should not make anyone less patriotic than the Dixie Chicks. In fact, it should be seen as a benchmark of measuring one’s fulfillment of the most solemn duty of citizenship – critiquing your own country.

The real question General Petraeus should answer is whether the cost of the war is worth it. He should be excused from giving that generic answer that says it is for the political leaders to decide. There comes a time when such life and death decisions should not be left in the hands of those who associate withdrawal with wimp; surrender with sedition; and who will not mind spending the next 100 years in Iraq warfront even if there is no money to buy milk for the kids at the home front.

Just like the president needs to hear from his general, we, the people, need to hear from our own general, too- uncensored and unchained by military and diplomatic niceties.

The cost of this war is deepening and the damage it is doing to America’s children is near irreversible. If General Petraeus has not turned corners, if he could not see the lights at the end of the tunnel, what other proof do we need to realize that the abyss some of us do not see is because we have become the abyss?

Please General Petraeus, what is the prospect of success? Isn’t it zero? Hundred years from now, isn’t the answer still zero?