Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiIraq: Did the Surge Work?
Violence, Alexander Solzenitsyn once observed, finds refuge in falsehood, even as falsehood is supported by violence. "Anyone who has once acclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose falsehood as his principle." (Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 1972) A practical rule can be deduced. Where there is violence, look for falsehood; where there is falsehood, look for violence. If Solzenitsyn is correct, they go together.
According to conventional wisdom, it seems that the "surge" in Iraq was a huge success. For example, a recent CNS News story was headlined: "With Success of Surge, NY Times' Iraq War Coverage Drops to All-Time Low" (October 21, 2008). The Times' coverage has dropped 60 per cent since 2004, and this is not terribly different from other news outlets. The media has lost interest in Iraq. Whether the surge really "worked," however, is another story.
In September 2007, Juan Cole, the respected Middle East expert, wrote an article called "Big Lies Surround the Iraq 'Surge.'" At that time he stated: "US troop deaths in Iraq have not fallen and . . . violence in Iraq has not fallen because of the Surge. Violence is way up this year." But, one might reply, that was then and this is now. How do matters stand more than a year after this gloomy verdict? A widespread consensus exists today throughout the political campaigns and the mainstream media that the great success of the Surge is beyond doubt.
The so-called Surge -- a euphemism for escalation -- was designed to increase security in Iraq. U.S. presence in the country was to be increased by 30,000 personnel along with a three-fold contribution in Iraqi forces. Additional troops were to be provided by coalition partners. Baghdad was selected as the center of the campaign. If security could be increased for the country's largest city, the rest would surely follow. A Shi'ite and Sunni "fault line" ran throughout the city.
In January 2007, a year after being launched, the Surge was widely acclaimed as a triumph. Contrary to naysayers like Cole, violence across the country was said to be down by 60 percent. Al Qaeda in Iraq, expelled from Baghdad and Anbar Province, was said to be on the run, and the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior reported that it was 75 percent destroyed. Not only was the violence in Iraq reduced, but Al Qaeda was being decimated.
Again, however, Cole, who relies on independent sources in the original languages, argued otherwise. What actually seems to have happened, he wrote in the summer of 2008, was that, first, the Sunni Arabs in Baghdad were disarmed by the escalation troops. Then, "once these Sunnis were left helpless, the Shiite militias came in at night and ethnically cleansed them."
Mixed neighborhoods in Baghdad ended up with almost no Sunnis. In 2007 Baghdad went from being predominantly Sunni to being overwhelmingly Shiite. According to Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress, Baghdad, once having a 65 percent Sunni majority, "is now 75 percent Shia."
"My thesis," wrote Cole, "would be that the U.S. inadvertently allowed the chasing of hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs out of Baghdad (and many of them had to go all the way to Syria for refuge). Rates of violence declined once the ethnic cleansing was far advanced, just because there were fewer mixed neighborhoods."
Cole's thesis has received important confirmation. According to Bob Woodward, in his new book The War Within (Simon & Schuster, 2008), the biggest factor behind the reduced violence in Iraq was "very possibly" not the Surge, but a resort to Death Squads. A "Top Secret" memo viewed by Woodward indicates that the Sunnis were systematically targeted and assassinated. What took place was reminiscent of the infamous Phoenix Program instituted by the U.S. in Vietnam. It was a strategy of summary executions.
Yet another confirmation appeared in a recent study conducted by scientists at the University of California. Based on an examination of satellite photos across Baghdad, the study observed that Sunni neighborhoods, which showed a dramatic decrease of nighttime light in Sunni neighborhoods, had been abandoned by their inhabitants. The surge, the study concluded, "has had no observable effect." The study attributed the tremendous decline in Baghdad's Sunni population to relocations and ethnic cleansing.
Tom Hayden raises some disturbing questions. "Why were the targets killed instead of being detained? How many targeted individuals were killed or made to disappear? . . . How are the operations consistent with US constitutional law and international human rights standards?" Why has thee been no congressional investigation?
According to UN reports, the number of Iraqi refugees has spiked during the Surge. Between 2.5 and 4 million are now estimated to exist outside their country, while another 2.5 are internal refugees. At least 2 million Sunni refugees cannot return to their homes without fear of being slaughtered.
People's lives remain shattered. One in four has had a family member who was murdered. "The humanitarian situation in most of the country remains among the most critical in the world," according to the Iraqi Red Cross/Red Crescent. Iraq's health care system is "now in worse shape than ever."
Unemployment remains high, sanitation and electrical facilities remain degraded, families use up to a third of their monthly income to buy drinking water. Tens of thousands are being held in detention camps. According to the UN, "the detention of children in adult detention centers violates U.S. obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as accepted international human rights norms." (AP, May 19, 2008)
Resorting to Death Squads, while ignoring the humanitarian crisis and touting the Surge, seems to offer yet another instance of Solzenitsyn's bleak prognosis that violence seeks refuge in falsehood.
63 Comments so far
Show Allor Dads Army.
Mash maybe.
You couldn't write a better farce.
Millimeter Wave Technology
As regards the targeted assassination aspect of the ‘success’ of The Surge (A tech and process which Bob Woodward’s recent book calls a “game changer”, the tactical equivalent to the advent of the tank or machine gun) —and credits, along with the unilateral cease fire by Al Sadr’s Mehdi Army, and the employment of the Sunni ‘enlightenment’ brigades, for the comparative calm. There are scraps of evidence to indicate that this new weapon system is an identification and targeting use of a technology previously known to the public from the body scanners at airports which show the passenger ‘nude’.
The targeted assassination program of which Mr. Woodward speaks, is thought to involve *Millimeter Wave (MMW) technology. This follows the discovery that all humans transmit MMW radiation in the 96ghz band. Further, it was discovered that every human being has his own, unique frequency within the MMW band, as distinctive as a fingerprint. As radar targets have characteristic signatures so now do biologic beings.
That’s how the MMW I.D. and targeting program must work. Each ‘aura’ it detects is distinctive and particular to the individual. The tech has come a long way since it’s discovery and is applied in numerous ways. The military has had it since the early nineties. The receivers have almost certainly become small and portable (and over-flyable?) by now. Imagine ‘sampling’ from a distance, or in the process of normal biometric data gathering, “fingerprinting” a person of interest’s MMW profile. Then almost certainly that individual could be picked out of a crowd with great accuracy. There have been for decades, anti-radar missiles designed to slide down a radar beam, homing in on it’s particular frequency to destroy it at the source. So it's likely that any person whose ‘signature’ at 96ghz is known, can not only be identified positively, but targeted precisely.
(*Extremely high frequency is the highest radio frequency band. EHF runs the range of frequencies from 30 to 300 gigahertz, above which electromagnetic radiation is considered to be low (or far) infrared light, also referred to as terahertz radiation. This band has a wavelength of ten to one millimetre, giving it the name millimeter band or millimetre wave, sometimes abbreviated MMW or mmW.)
I wonder if our MMW signatures are on file yet?
egon fawlkner
Don't worry, the tin foil hat you wear will block these.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
Yeah, I know it may sound like shiny headgear stuff, it's all drawn from web searches and other such scraps of wind. —but check out this article I found in the LA Times from last month. Kind of confirms that my hare-brained sounding suppositions were fairly close.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan12-2008sep12,1,573883.story
Also Dan Froomkin mentions it in his Wa Post column (sept 12th) and of course Woodward's book hints of the importance...
egon
.
The SURGE was a 12 month illusion. For over 100 Billion Dollars, a temporary reprieve was staged. The Guerrillas regrouped, retrained, recruited, and set the United States up. Now the Civil War will start, and Iran will become the real power in southern Iraq.
"Frankly, I think thats a fairly good summation." (Thomas More)
Thomas, my feelings exactly.
I think the surge was a partial short term success for George Bush and the McCain/Palin ticket purely in terms of domestic partisan rhetoric and issue framing, and it will likely prove to be a long term success (on the ground in the Middle East, where it matters) for Iran.
Iran played a key role in persuading Moktada's Mahdi army to stand down for awhile until the surge had run it's anticipated course in cleansing Sunnis from Baghdad and other mixed population areas, and in disrupting the base of Moktada's popular nationalist Shiite movement in Sadr City and in southern Iraq. Sanctuary was offered to regroup and reorganize until the surge was over.
The resulting relative drop in violence directed against US occupation forces (when the Sunni Awakening militias agreed to go on the American payroll and the Mahdi army took its breather) simultaneously took a lot of the steam out of Bush/Cheney's sabre rattling towards Teheran: no longer could the mullahs be accused of insidiously arming, training, and instigating attacks that were killing US forces on a daily basis. About all that was left as a White House excuse for escalating the Iraq conflict across the border into Iran before Bush/Cheney pack up and get out of Dodge City was the old WMD nuclear program boogeyman.
Nope. Not gonna get fooled twice.
Iran apparently avoids getting bombed and/or invaded. The oil futures speculators sell and pocket their profits as the Persian Gulf crisis crests. The stateside price at the pump even falls dramatically just in time for election day.
But there's more.
Suddenly, the Shiite Maliki government suddenly gets cranky and demands that Bush insert a time deadline for complete US troop withdrawal into the status of forces agreement that's been tied up in secret negotiations for months. Iran quite understandably wants US forces out of both Iraq and Afghanistan.
If Maliki hangs tough on the troop withdrawal deadline issue, the American infidels will be compelled to withdraw, a humiliating rejection of the Bush doctrine. Iran wins. But if Maliki's Shiite parliamentary coalition tries to sneak through some sleazy oil deal with western oil companies, or a SOFA that legitimizes a long term US military presence inside Iraq, then Iran always has Moktada warming up in the bullpen as Plan B. Iran still wins.
Thus, I figure the surge was a huge success for Iran, and a partial partisan success for Bush and McCain, if and only if the illusion of possible "victory" in Iraq can be sustained within the US mainstream media's blinders while the clock runs out - at least until November 4th.
Bill from Saginaw
"I think the surge was a partial short term success for George Bush and the McCain/Palin ticket purely in terms of domestic partisan rhetoric and issue framing, and it will likely prove to be a long term success (on the ground in the Middle East, where it matters) for Iran" (Bill)
Bill I enjoyed reading your comments regarding the question of the success or failure of the "surge". Your defining of exactly what success might look like and exactly who might be the recipients of this success was most instructive.
Thanks Bill
Frankly, I think thats a fairly good summation.
12 days left to Impeach Bush and Cheney.
Huh?
First, do you know they stay in office until Jan 20?
But hey, that gives us time to start the Impeach Obama movement.
Anyone want to start a pool on how long it takes for Obama to commit impeachable offenses or war crimes? From his statements on 'surging' in Afghanistan and about attacking into the sovereign nation of Pakistan, I think I want a date in the pool in late Jan 2009.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
Ha! I just sent an email to friends about a week ago where I guessed Obama would be a war criminal by Feb. 1, '09. "All signs point to yes."
Where will the Obama supporters be then? Fingers in ears, LA-LA-LA...
Let's call the surge what it is: a set of war crimes. Ethnic cleansing is a war crime, and this adds to the massive set of war crimes that continue from the days of Bill Clinton to the days of W Bush, and seemingly will continue to the days of Obama. War criminals all by the time we are through.
Meanwhile, from the Democrats 'anti-war' candidate ....
"Senator Barack Obama said Wednesday he would order a surge of U.S. troops – perhaps 15,000 or more – to Afghanistan as soon as he reached the White House.
“We're confronting an urgent crisis in Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama, the Democratic contender and now clear front-runner to replace George W. Bush, said Wednesday.
“It's time to heed the call … for more troops. That's why I'd send at least two or three additional brigades to Afghanistan,” he said in his most hawkish promise to date."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081022.wcampaign_speech23/BNStory/Afghanistan/?pa...
Gee, funny how that news story didn't make CD.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
You are right, you are right !!!!
You must remember that one of Obama´s foreign relations advisors is Zbigniew Brzezinski. Yes, the man who formed the Islamic Militant Force to destabilize Afghanistan. You see, if the Soviet Union had success with their economic and educational programs in Afghanistan, then they would have gone down to Iran.
That was in 1979 and in the 80´s the CIA and Pakistan´s ISI worked together to recruit 100,000 militants to be trained and based in Pakistan, but to fight in Afghanistan. The Saudis and the United States put over 12 billion dollars into that force and that force was maintained until the Taliban were put into power.
The funnier thing is the Saudis are currently negotiating with the Taliban as the Americans are enemyizing them. But, then the Sunnis are supported and financed by the Saudis too.....
It is just too much for all those CIA Off Book Companies to keep track of.....
By the way, anyone hear Robert Baer, Ex-CIA, on public radio? I guess he and a lot of other people know that Osama Bin Laden has been dead since 2006??????????
Sioux Rose
ENLIVEN & TRUTH ADDICT: Thank you for helping me to take the board away from Mr. More's eyes in his always covert deference for our military, regardless of the reason for their deployment.
FREDERICK JOHNSON: If you can endlessly ruminate about wearing women's underware, I'll post where I f--king please. This is a forum, not etiquette for The Lady's Home Journal.
"FREDERICK JOHNSON: If you can endlessly ruminate about wearing women's underware, I'll post where I f--king please. This is a forum, not etiquette for The Lady's Home Journal."
I wasn't even talking about that you DING BAT. PAY ATTENTION to the posts and learn to post your replies to the correct places instead of as new topics. How the hell is anyone supposed to take you seriously. Besides, Thomas More is more of a moderate liberal and what's wrong with that? At least he's not a Rush Limbaugh dittohead.
Thomas More would be a decent guy if he could be just exorcised of his deeply held beliefs in American imperialist exceptionalism.
Very kind, thanks for the good wishes for my future!
Classic totalitarian debating technique. Try to turn the debate away from the debate on facts and issues (which they always lose), and instead try to debate format and proceedure. Who the heck care whether she posts a new topic or a reply?
Meanwhile, while CD'ers hold their important debate on whether a post should be as a new topic or a reply, at least 23 people DIED in Iraq, and at least 43 more were screaming in agony as they were 'wounded'.
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=13666
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
Well Sioux Rose, all I can say is you are wrong in your surmises.
Sioux Rose
RICH M: Right on! If every elected rep was fed truth serum, their words would probably mirror your own.
THOMAS MORE: Your casual contempt for OTHER, other as fallaciously construed into "enemy," is breathtaking for its calm disregard. They programmed you well, when you were in uniform. The uniform became the man.
Hello Sioux Rose. Can't you learn to post your replies to where they belong?
Hi _ S I O U X _ R O S E _,
Let me attempt to clarify FREDERICK_JOHNSON's critique.
He's requesting that you make use of the :::THREADED::: capability ( directly associating responses to initial postings ) which is now available on CD, by clicking upon the "REPLY" keyword ( between EDIT and REPORT THIS ), in the lower right hand corner of the originator's own posting
What you actually did was provide a :::NON-THREADED::: or FLAT response , which has nominally bypassing the targeted :::THREADED::: capability. By your just entering your response to a particular posting, in the general ( automatically shown ) new posting BOX at the bottom, you miss the enhanced CLARITY opportunity of LINKING your response to the original one.
Simply stated,
(1.) Next time you respond to a particular posting, use the "REPLY" keyword, in the lower right hand corner of that particular posting.
(2.) If you are generally commenting on the article, or wish for your comments to rank as the latest top-most time-ranked entry, then do as you've been doing ( using the edit box at the bottom ).
Namaste
enliven,
THANK YOU. I didn't know how to explain it any better to SR but you explained it better. Unfortunately, it looks like SR has shown her contempt and turned ignorant and intolerant. She used to be ok. What's the matter with her anyway?
"Your casual contempt for OTHER"
You'll have to explain that. It makes no sense.
The second part is simply nonsense.
SR has lost control of her mind and possibly her faculties ! She didn't even read the posts which explains her superwacky off-topic responses.
Perhaps for the lack of your considering the OTHER, which is evident in your
__ illogically, too narrowly focused, and immorally stating that
__ the surge "worked quite well" ( for who, the Iraqi or us -- how ? )
… when uncountable ( both Iraqi & other ) human suffering and death, resulted in a misguided attempt to create a dramatic prop that might foolishly indicate something other than an absolute moral failure and bankruptcy of leadership.
There is real no value in any superficial controlling "order", occurring on top of and after illegalities of invasion and terrible subjugation and torture of REAL people. There is nothing here but the false purpose of placing the heel of power and control on the throats of others, whom are really US -- as we're all really connected and interdependent.
An all of that cruelty to pander and pack aggrandized profits upon warmongering corporations, incapable of sharing the booty with the American people -- who paid for it ( and thought they were justified in it, for errant "patriotic" and revengeful reasons ) .
AS TO NONSENSE:
Your inability to effectively reason, apart from the errant assumption of military might being "right" -- is exactly the result of a properly programmed tool of the military establishment. Perhaps it would be better for you, to PEACEFULLY live a morally more balanced life, to be a "broken tool" that advocates for PEACE and human-kindness for ALL?
Namaste
"the surge "worked quite well" ( for who, the Iraqi or us -- "
For George Bush has always been my thought.
My statement that the Surge as a tactic did indeed work had absolutely nothing to do with your 4th, 5th and sixth paragraphs. I really don't see how you can construe that from what I said. In any case, let me clear that up for you, it didn't.
"AS TO NONSENSE:
Your inability to effectively reason, apart from the errant assumption of military might being "right"
Again, exactly how did you derive this from what I said? I must be dense because no matter how I read my statement, it doesn't generate your conclusion.
Looking back at all three of your statements it seems to me that your personal attacks seem unwarranted.
… well if Geo Wanker is your moral compass,
___ then the surge "working" is when
___ it provides maximum financial and political power gain for neoCONners.
… your assumption of my personal attacks is unwarranted, unless "you" are equivalent to your possibly errant thoughts -- which I do not believe is the case. I hold who you are, to be a possibility way beyond where you think that you are now ( stuck ).
The density of your thoughts is like the purpose and benefit of both our MINDs and PARACHUTEs functioning most fully, when they're completely OPEN.
If you perceive geo the shrub_in_thief ( by his position ) as always righteous and moral -- then the benefit of my response is NILL.
¿ How does aligning with a pathological criminal benefit you ?
Namaste
"well if Geo Wanker is your moral compass"
BITE YOUR TONGUE! That is a horrible thing to say to a human.
Again, how do you construe my statement that the surge worked and for Bush to it being with my approval or that I had anything but contempt for Bush I do not know.
But boy, can I clear that up for you. George Bush was one of the dumbest, most inept and most destructive people I ever knew when he was Gov. of Texas and he went downhill as President. He came in with a surplus and left a deficit. He presided over deregulation in Texas that has hurt every citizen. Dick Cheney I am almost sure is the anti-christ. Bush wouldn't know morality if it bit him in the butt.
Lets see, when I was watching my men being blown apart, eaten by every bug known to man, seeing one die from snakebite. Watched them try to stay sane. I certainly admired George for his stance in not joining those men. Master Cheney too. Along with every other SOB that started this misbegotton war. They sent our kids out where they never went.
The war in Iraq was started by these same cowards, sending our kids where they refused to go. It was an attack that was un-American, unwarrented and tragic for everyone. These guys are the only war criminals here. It was wrtong then, wrong now, but all we can do is get our kids out as soon as possible and hopefully help the Iraqui to rebuild (if they want us too)
If you are anti-war, take your feeling and multiply it by a million and you'll be close to me.
I am not anti-military though. We obviously need one and I prefer a volunteer service to a draft.
That the surge worked as a tactic is exactly what I said and all it meant.
Thats the best way I can say it. That George Bush crack really hurt though.
OK, I didn't understand your contextual qualification -- and I had no desire of associating you with bu$h!t other than your statements that the (propaganda ) of the "surge worked".
It didn't work at ALL for me, and if you care so little for geo's moral deficit and actions -- I have trouble understanding why you consider the "tactic" to have in any manner "worked" or succeeded at anything.
Behind the scenes, the distribution of families has changed so needlessly through heinous ethnic cleansing and egregious suffering, that of course the absolute levels of violence are apparently lowered. The metric of a success is so slewed to distort and hide all of the negativities of broken families, bribery, assassinations, terror and dead ( who speak so poorly for themselves )
To me this is a win only for propaganda's sake -- and the Iraqi people overall ( AND our troops ) are much worse off for it ( bu$h!t ).
Namaste
"and I had no desire of associating you with bu$h!t"
Thank God!!
As a military tactic, it simply achieved its tactical aim. Doesn't mean its not everything you and others said about it. It just succeeded as a tactic.
As to the Surge....I wouldn't have sent one more kid there.
I was watching the news last night, they showed a company in Afganistan, they went on an ambush and part of the company went into the town and when they called in mortors a round fell short and killed one of the kids and injured 9 others. Then they showed the kid that was killed because they had filmed him the day before.
The best way I can explain how I feel is to say,
It made me cry. It made me mad. If you want to know why he died and what for, I'd tell you he died because cowards that don't know anything about what war really is sent them there so they could thump their chests at the club. What he died for? Nothing. Because in the end we will have accomplished nothing except to cause misery to everyone involved.
Do I think the Taliban are good? No. Do I think its our business if they rule the country or other Afgans do? Hell no. Do I think Al Sadar is a good guy, No. Did I think Hussain was good for Iraq, Hell No! But was it our business...double hell no X 10. Iraqui's need to decide what Iraq will be, its their country.
These people had nothing to do with the attack on the Towers and we have wasted our men and material, wealth and honor while some moral midgets tried nation building behind a screen of lies and a press that no longer does their job.
Just like Reagan sending our Marines to Lebanon...will we never learn to not interfere unless its morally called for like Darfur, where we are not engaged. Allowing genocide and slavery top be practiced....oops, getting soapboxy
I've said more than enough, but this stuff just kills me. I'm done...and THANKS for retracting that Bush crack. That really did hurt.
Meanwhile from the 'anti-war' candidate promoted by the Democrats ...
"Senator Barack Obama said Wednesday he would order a surge of U.S. troops – perhaps 15,000 or more – to Afghanistan as soon as he reached the White House.
“We're confronting an urgent crisis in Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama, the Democratic contender and now clear front-runner to replace George W. Bush, said Wednesday.
“It's time to heed the call … for more troops. That's why I'd send at least two or three additional brigades to Afghanistan,” he said in his most hawkish promise to date."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081022.wcampaign_speech23/BNStory/Afghanistan/?pa...
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
If every elected rep was fed truth serum, their words would probably mirror your own.
_____________________________________
You have a higher opinion of our political elite than I. I would expect that the effect of a dose of truth serum on elected reps would resemble the effect of the bucket of water Dorothy poured on The Wicked Witch of the West.
"What a world!..."
Oh please, LITTLE BROTHER … I strongly suspect you do know better.
You sustain the illusion of pure evil incarnate, by the witch being dissolved into nothingness, in screaming agony.
Perhaps it is all about CHOICE ( between the contrasts we see ), and that the use of a truth serum is about more properly managing our ability to create what we truly desire ( ignoring what we don't want ).
Perhaps "true EVIL" is just the illusion that we can really blame everything :out there" on something other than ourselves, for what is real is what we make it so.
Namaste
The surge did not work.
The surge did not work.
THE SURGE DID NOT WORK.
A perverted "Phoenix Program"
America has done the world wrong.
The world is really big.
Russia, China, Indonesia, Europe, Africa, South America, and so many others.
"Iraq: Did the Surge Work?" The method is not the point in this war crime.
It's like bragging about the method used to rape and murder Mother Teresa.
Even General Betrayus finally had the bat and balls to come clean and admit that the "surge" is an UTTER FAILURE. I'm sorry but I feel that we the people are nothing but rendered corn-fed L-O-S-E-R-S. :=(
Where did you see that? I was basing my opinion on the easing of violence, the increase of business in those areas according to a couple of Iraqi friends that are still there and what Patreus said. If thats true I may need to look again.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/79732/petraeus_admits_the_surge_has_failed/?comments=view&cID=85801...
I'm not sure though that it negates what you pointed out on short term success.
I see what you mean. All that tactic was for was a short term success. It wasn't a strategy, simply a military tactic that has been used many times in history. I always thought it was simply a way to gain political time for George.
Thanks for the link. I'd still call it a sucessful tactic though.
Ok, thanks. Like the 87b in 2004, this surge thingy will be forgotten as Iraq turns out to be a bigger failure. Obama had better be prepared to face the rightwing mafia media especially Faux Noise as they and the GOP will do everything to frame Obama as the culprit and exonerate Bush just like they did for Nixon and Raygun.
The Surge worked for only one person: George Wanker Bush. It prolonged the occupation until he could slink away next January like the sick snake he is.
The question was exactly "Iraq: Did the Surge Work?" Why not just say as a military tactic, which it was, that yes it worked and quite well.
Then give whatever other points you want to. Why deny the fact that it did work? After all it was just a tactic. It doesn't have lasting impact. Its not a strategy.
Let's play with the "military tactic" argument of yours and see if sending more war criminals really worked.
Three things brought down violence in Iraq:
1) Ethnic cleansing. Sunni's were driven from predominant Shiite neighborhoods and vice versa.
This is not a US "military tactic." This was a horrific result of our illegal war and occupation, and certainly not "the surge."
2) Al Sadr has largely adhered to a cease fire.
This is not a US "military tactic." Sending more war criminals had nothing to do with his respect for the cease fire.
3) The Illegal Occupiers have bought off the resistance.
This is not a US "military tactic" related to the surge. Paying off the Sunni resistance didn't requuire sending more troops.
It didn't work. Sending more troops to Iraq did nothing to lower the violence from really high to still really high but not as high as before.
Here is what the surge succeeded at: wasting more of our taxes.
Buying off some of these guys was part of the tactic I believe. At least thats the information I had.
It seems to me that somehow you construe my statement of anything I say as defending this war. I'd suggest you check my prior posts.
In any case, the violence is far lower, the normalcy of life is far higher and if any ethnic cleansing was done it was by Iraqui's themselves.
So deny the sucess of this tactic if you will, my point was it doesn't make sense to do that and I do disagree with you both. As a tactic it worked well.
Is it that hard to hear a different opinion? We don't agree, thats evident. I don't consider men and women that do their duty War Criminals. Most people take my view, some take yours. Its simply different opinions based on different experiences.
You are unbelievably dense. You constantly mesh the effects of ethnic cleansing and buying off of the enemies with sending more troops. The former two has nothing to do with the latter sense you dont need to send more troops for it. Do you not comprehend this or what?
And, it has nothing to do with hearing a different opinion. Having a different opinion has nothing to do with whether it is valid or not. What you are trying to do is weasle out of the illegitimacy of your statement by saying I am intolerant to your "opinion." Tolerance has nothing to do with proving someone wrong.
If I say 2+2=5 and you say, "No, it equals four" then that doesn't mean you are intolerant to my "opinion" of something verifiable, and it's that word "verifiable" that undermines your "opinion."
What is the surge? Sending more troops to Iraq.
If the sending of more troops to Iraq has no demonstratable success but the effects of paying off the Sunni resistance, ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods and cease fire between the Mahdi Army does, then it proves to show that the surge was not what was successful, the latter points were.
Summary: your "opinion" that the surge worked or was a success is verifiably false. Stop whining and deal with the facts.
What should it tell you about your ideology that you cannot face reality and have to rely on claims of others being intolerant to your "opinion" when the facts dont support your allegations?
Why thanks for the kind compliment.
"Go fuck yourself." ~ Dick Cheney
PS: you're welcome.
That certainly says a lot about you doesn't it?
Depends on if you took it as me seriously saying to go fuck yourself or if it was quoting Cheney all in the name of banter.
I would opt for the latter, but I am biased since I know my own intentions.
OK....you got me! I knew Cheney was your hero so I just thought......put that rock down!
Seriously, I don't think I have made myself clear, but I'll try harder in the future.
By the way, I hear there may be an opening at the University of Chicago......
If Cheney was my hero I would ask you to go hunting with me.
University of Chicago... Could I defecate in Friedman's old office?
"If Cheney was my hero I would ask you to go hunting with me."
Gee thanks! Let me practice ducking first.
You may fill Miltons office to the ceiling. There was always a lot of BS in there anyway.
did you say "duck"?
*takes a drink from flask and aims
I'm going down in flames. I think we should stay at the lodge and drink. Much warmer.
Truthaddict, thank you for your slicing and dicing of Mr. More's obsfucating. What's even more amazing is that Gonsalves wrote about this very issue a few weeks back, focusing on a study that examined the night-light signatures of Iraq, showing empirical evidence that the Sunni neighborhoods had been cleansed BEFORE THE SURGE WAS INITIATED! And his comments were along the same lines. There's nothing to add to the THREE clear points you made about the surge, except perhaps, an analogy. The veriable facts are as you stated, the decline in violence in Baghdad was due to 1) ethnic-cleansing, BEFORE THE SURGE WAS INITIATED, 2) we paid Sunni insurgents to stop killing us - a tactic that was initiated BEFORE THE SURGE and 3) Al-Sadr quieted down Shia militias FROM A POSITION OF STRENGTH - from his perspective, the war had already been won. The Shia's won! So, it is to his POLITICAL advantage to put the arms away, chill out in Iran, and seek the political route. It's always good to go the political route when you already won. So, to say "the surge worked" in the face of the veriable facts is like saying the police quelled the violence of a bar fight, even though they showed up after the fight was over and everybody went home.
Of course it didn't work. (Obama caved in to media pressure & told Bill O'Reilly that it had "succeeded beyond anyone's expectations.") The surge was a huge crime, piled atop an even greater crime.
The question isn't whether the surge "worked." What's important is that the US should never have been there in the first place, and had no right to attempt such a monstrous use of force.
Citing Solzhenitsyn is very appropriate, since the US is becoming terrifyingly like the USSR under Stalin. It's verboten in this country to ever publicly admit we did anything wrong. We have a farcical "election" in progress where neither candidate can tell the truth about anything. Neither can say that the US military budget should be cut by 90%; that the US invasion of Iraq was a massive crime; and that for the sake of oil & war-profiteering, we've murdered over a million people & basically destroyed Iraqi civilization.
Instead of that, these 2 trained monkeys get up on stage and prattle on about how the f*cking "surge" was a success, & argue about where the "real front lines" in the War on Terror are.
Since Obama is now saying he'll immediately do a 'surge' in Afghanistan, I doubt its correct to say he 'caved' to media pressure. Its seems more likely that he really does believe this and he certainly seems anxious to get to the White House and start his own surge and get blood on his hands and start his own body count of innocents he'll have killed.
After all, we've got both his predicessors up in the millions in terms of how many people they killled. Both Bill Clinton and George Bush have killed a million or more Iraqis. They just used different weapons. I guess since Iraq has been pretty well decimated, which really means 1 in 10 dead, so 2 million or so in a country of 25 million is about right for being 'decimated', then I guess Obama feels he has to go to other lands like Afghanistan or Pakistan in order to start getting his body count up to the levels of Clinton and Bush.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
I agree with the general thrust of that.
However, I used the word "cave" above because Obama had originally criticized the surge. The media hounded him about this for months, demanding that he acknowledge the "success" of the surge. He tried different ways of deflecting this demand, but finally capitulated entirely, in his interview with O'Reilly.
It was a lot like his position on the FISA amendment, which early last spring he'd vowed to filibuster. Then he wound up voting FOR it! // So in a way, one could say that was also a "cave in" -- though it would be hard to dispute the counter-argument that it wasn't really a cave-in, because Obama's principles are so "flexible" that his opposing something means almost nothing.