The right wing press is already rehearsing their stab in the back propaganda, arguing that the filthy liberals betrayed their country and the troops by turning public opinion against the war at a time when a little patience could have won it. This ad doesn't attack the right-wing on this propaganda, it just feeds into the propaganda.

The Republicans are going to have a very hard time winning this propaganda war, since there were no large protests against the Iraq invasion, the troops have not been denigrated, and many Democrats initially voted for the war. That won't stop a well-funded cottage industry springing up trying to prove America was stabbed in the back by traitors, and we will have to live with this campaign for the rest of our lives.

What's at stake is whether America learns anything permanent from the Iraq experience, or just recycles back into the same fatal error twenty years from now when a new generation of Republicans gets thirsty for war.

Right now, the recycling process seems like the best bet, because this has been a costless war for the American people (other than the high price of oil). We may be entering a period where Americans feel it is time to spend money at home rather than abroad, but that does not translate into a permanent disillusionment with the highly-militarized society that exists in the U.S.

It will take a lot more ads with a different tone to switch public opinion permanently.

I don't see any text in the story to indicate the nickname is used by troops on the ground... What I do see is this:

Critics, including one recently retired general, are privately calling him “General Betraeus” on the grounds that he is too ambitious to deliver a balanced report on the war.

Nothing about troops on the ground in the story--though I may have just misread.