Why are you showing this propaganda on the huff post? Enough scare tactics, already--from both sides of the aisle.

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Violence in Iraq mainly consists of Shia-Sunni violence and insurgents (freedom-fighters) fighting the occupiers (U.S.) and their sympathizers (Iraq government).

There is also some violence created by non-Iraqis (al Qaeda). However, the number of al Qaeda in Iraq has never been big. By U.S. estimates, 4 to 10% of fighters in Iraq are "foreign".

Additionally, there is some violence among different sects within Shia, mainly restricted to southern provinces, which are now in virtual control of Iran. Iran has controlled the level of violence in these regions.

There has been mass movement of Sunnis, both within Iraq and to places outside Iraq. The formerly mixed Shia-Sunni neighborhoods are now either pure Shia or pure Sunni. This is the biggest factor behind reduced Shia-Sunni violence in Iraq " segregation. However, those displaced are homeless and without jobs. They will not remain docile forever. Those outside Iraq are being pushed back by countries like Egypt and Jordan to go back and fight the emergence of a Shia theocracy in Iraq " something that neighboring Sunni countries don"t want happening.

The REAL 'surge', -of bribe payments to the tribal warlords, ...must be running out.

Disgusting. And the right is still spinning the *success* of the surge. Nothing has changed, some folks were just holding back while we applied intense tactics. We can't maintain them, our military is broken down and tired.

The decrease in violence was *supposed to* give the Iraqi government cover to move forward - it hasn't happened. How come the goal gets moved every few months?

I'm ashamed of my country, I'm ashamed of my president. I pray that a new administration will bring about changes that make me able to live with his horror.

make no mistake... people are still dying in Iraq every single day... bombings that average at least one per day... and 20 Americans dead so far this month (nearly an American a day)

Yet going by the White House and major news networks, one might think Iraq is just ducky

But...but...but...the surge. They promised us it was working.

Ah! So Bu$h and Betrayus lied again. No surprise there. That is what they've always done. Sadly, the trolls always believe their lies.

And more and more people die....

Must be their second-to-last throes...

Yeah, things are dramatically better in Iraq. All those condo developments, theme parks and sidewalk cafés flourishing everywhere.

Why, just look at the flood of commercial investment in Iraq on Wall Street!

Those who buy this absurd narrative belong in day care.

they don't include the 5000 plus a year u.s. soldiers who commit suicide annually. the 500000 plus thousand innocent iraqis killed or maimed by "shock and awe" fake osama tapes.......rove, cheney, libby, gonzales, bush, murdoch and fox news,,,,,,,HOMELAND SECURITY?????? THEY SURE AREN'T PROTECTING ME...or you
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, THE TRUTH IS THE GREATEST ENEMY OF THE STATE." -- Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945

"The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of an eye: the more light you pour on it, the more it contracts."
Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, U.S. Supreme Court

"When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." -Sinclair Lewis

the surge was supposed to create enough stability for the various factions in Iraq to reconcile their differences.Instead all it's done is reduced US casualty statistics(a good thing in itself but not enough justification for the surge)enough so the right-wing can claim it's working.
the fact is 2007 started with just over 3000 US soldiers dead and will end with around 3900 US soldiers dead making it the worst year since the beginning of this never ending war.
I said before:If you put your entire police force down at the local shopping crimes rates there would drop dramatically...for awhile.but it's unsustainable,as is the surge.without us there to prop it up Iraq will topple over plain and simple.

Rate Of Suicide Bombs Rises In Iraq
Shhhhhhhhhhhh.

ALL nonsense to justify Iraq war which was a war of choice...Let us see Iraq had nothing to do with 911 ..sure saddam was a dictator like many others in the region,,, No WMD , lied to manipulate the intelligence, the Iraq exiles hoodwinked Boosh (the idiot) & Boosh declared war on Iraq... The cost of war: 3/4 million Iraqi civilans dead, 4 million displaced in the country & 2 million left for other countries, Iraq infrastrucutre shattered & set back 20-30 years, 3900 brave marines dead, 30k severly injured, 1 trillion cost to our treasury, trillions of $ pumped into Arabs hands cuz of rise in oil...the very sob from where the terrorsits came from...
Against this back drop, the RepuhThugs talk about Democracy, freedom..what a joke that is ...Take a look at the freedoms they are taking away from us ...spying on us... an unparreled bad decesion by the Moron Decider to invade Iraq & let the Osama get away from Afghanistan ..Look now Taliban & Al Quida back in Pakistan & doing well... These are the facts what this Idiot has done ..Talk about violence down ..what a joke & claim we are doing it for Democracy ...Give us break ...Go preach some other sheep who dont know any better ..

It's amazing what happens when you bring in a commander that understands that, in the context of counterinsurgency, the battlefield geometry is more about demography than geography. I have little doubt that we would not be in this mess if Petraeus had been put in command immediately after the statue came down.

However, over the 3+ "lost years" where the Bush administration was either refusing to admit that there was an insurgency or refusing to commit to an appropriate political and military strategy, we dug ourselves quite the hole. The sectarian conflict is vastly worse than it ever should have become, and our Armed Forces simply can't project enough presence to execute the correct strategy on this scale.

So we've learned our lesson. We now know that clear, hold, and build is an effective tactic when accompanied by a strategy that targets local issues. The drawback is that it's a high-density tactic that requires a lot of presence, money, and skill for the area it secures. But by not executing this strategy, we allowed the surface area of this conflict to increase dramatically, which is not what we want to do when the solution requires high density.

We turned what was initially a value proposition into an impossibility. The surge has been largely effective within the footprint onto which it was deployed. But nobody, even on the far right, is suggesting that we take this effective strategy and extend it to cover more of the theater. It's not possible. We let the problem get too big.

The surge is an academic exercise that demonstrates that, if we could do it over again, perhaps we'd get it right. Americans and Iraqis are dying for this (hardly) face-saving presentation of our strategic lessons-learned that was never intended to solve the sectarian conflict.

(continued...)

As usual we don't get ALL the facts - just what they WANT us to hear.

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