How To Tell If Your Surge Is Working

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If the surge were a success, Mc Cain and Bush would be bringing home the troops. The fact that McCain and Bush want to keep the surge in place means the surge is a failure. The need to keep the surge means there is a need to keep Iraq from falling apart. If Iraq will fall apart without the surge, then the surge has failed. Until the surge is not needed the surge is failing. If a surge in troops does not stabilize Iraq enough for the surge troops to go home, then there is no point in keeping them in Iraq.

If there were the possibility of the disparate forces in Iraq coming together, these forces would be taking advantage of the presence of American troops. That is not happening. Sharing power is not on the agenda for any of the players in Iraqi politics. All sides are planning to wage war on each other once the Americans go home. The surge is only wasting lives, money and resources by suppressing an inevitably violent struggle for control of Iraq. Let the Iraqis create their own future. And let Bush get the credit for whatever results.

Comments

[jhamm1]

If you're Bush or Cheney, the best way to tell if the surge is working is to flip a coin.

If heads, the surge is working.
If tails, the surge is working.

[LeftRight]

Nah, they're not looking at a heads I win tails you lose situation, they've just created a two headed quarter, with bushco's(tm) face on it!

[ObGyn]

Senator Boxer is asking the question I posted last night: Iranian president can visit Iraq in the open, but American president must sneak into Iraq.

[LeftRight]

Iranian president is better protected by the Iraqi security forces.....

[hopeless277]

I say start kidnapping young men a women off the streets and into forced military service in Iraq. Threaten them with prison and torture if they do not comply. Threaten their parents with severe monetary fines if they fail to support the kidnapping. After millions are enslaved as soldiers, send them to Iraq and tell them to kill anything that moves. Eventually the supply of young people will give out and we will have no choice but to retreat. The good news is that our supply of young men and women will last for years and years. Oh, and someone better start building another wall in DC. A very long wall.

[DavidK08]

Doesn't the title word "SURGE" mean that the troop levels are temporary? More time in Iraq for more troops means something different than a surge. If the "elevated" troop levels aren't temporary, it isn't a surge. It is an increase in troops.

Where are these troops comming from? Do we have a factory that just pops them out?

It is a no brainer that the U.S. Army (w/ some jar heads) can do anything asked of them. The fact that the country is safer with more of them there is a given. The problem is how long can they be expected to stay there. What are the other requirements of the U.S. military?

[LeftRight]

Actually, the reasons that Iraq is a safer place today than a year ago (but still more dangerous than 2, 3, 4, or 5 years ago) are not directly related to the surge. First, the neighborhoods are MUCH more homogeneous now, thus the killers don't have as easy a time finding victims. Second, there are MILLIONS of refugees from Iraq living in bordering countries right now. Third, we are PAYING the very people who used to be most likely to kill us, so that they WON'T!

[DoninJoisey]

First off, call it ESCALATION.
That the escalation reduced violence is a myth. The reduction in violence was caused by turning areas over to militias and buying them off - nut cases like Sadr.
Another short-sighted idea, very much like the great idea to feed Al Qaeda when they opposed the Russians in Aghanistan - that worked out well in the long term, didn't it?

We are on the wrong side in Iraq. We are the aggressors, invaders of a country, and wonder why the people don't love us?

Suppose civilized countries, like Europe, decided that America had gone astray, that it's elections were rigged, that Bush had suspended constitutional rights that go back to the Magna Carta, that it practiced torture, that it was war-like,.... and decided to invade us and overthrow Bush. Would we welcome them as liberators? Even when they'd kick in our doors looking for weapons?

We went into Iraq for oil. Only due to faith-based incompetence haven't we achieved that goal, and we're not leaving 'till we get it.

McCain really doesn't get it. This isn't a military contest any more. Our military did it's job - defeating the Iraqi army. Now Iraq is an occupation, and we are foreigners in an alien culture, responsible for deaths of many Iraqis, for them not having water, electricity, jobs, security - why don't they love us? I know, let's send more troops, that'll do it.

Pitiful. Oil is what is behind Iraq, and the saber-rattling at Iran.

[SamThornton]

No one can predict the future, of course, but there are two things we know will happen if we withdraw all US forces from Iraq:

1) US personnel will not be shooting Iraqis; and

2) Iraqis will not be shooting US personnel.

If Iraqis wish to shoot each other, isn't that pretty much their business?

[Gary50]

There are, in fact, three things we know. The two you mentioned and we know that "losing" Iraq was (will be) the fault of the Democrats. We were just about to turn the corner in a few weeks or a few decades when the Dems turned tail and ran away. And the media will repeat the lie that the Democrats are to blame for the loss and thus for the entire mess, ad infinitem. It will become reality for the majority of Americans just like the "fact" that the media is liberal.

[BBackSoon]

It was the hippies that lost us Vietnam weren"t it?

[wagadog]

The purpose of US military action in Iraq is not to provide stability or democracy for the people there. The purpose isn't even to secure energy resources for the people of the US.

The purpose is to funnel as much power and wealth into the hands of oil companies and military contractors as possible. The Pentagon Papers documented the fact that US Business Interests were behind Viet Nam; Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse documented the fact that US Business Interests are behind Iraq.

From this warped and self-serving perspective, our troops and the Iraqi people are simply in the way, and the surge working -- to wipe out as many people as possible.

This is an unpalatable goal, and unpalatable means for achieving them -- so we hear a lot of illogical propaganda in the land of MSM make-believe.

[elbzee]

This post smacks of Joseph Heller-ish logic. Very well put forth! Thank you for a voice of reason!

[Sundialsvc4]

Think about it: does the interpretation now being foisted upon you by the Press make sense, or is there not a much simpler explanation?

If a foreign nation were coming in to seize the wheat in Kansas, to take it away royalty-free and sell it to you for whatever price he chose ... If that nation had a hundred thousand troops tromping through American soil to do that ... you'd fight back too. With anything and with everything you had.

Shift gears a hundred-twenty years or so. These dudes are British Redcoats: the strongest and most honed military superpower in the world. How are you going to fight back against that? Well, crack open your history-books... the real ones, I mean. How did the Americans fight back, and fight back successfully?

[LeftRight]

Um..... The same way that the Iraqis are fighting back now? (with the small exception that we had fewer suicide bombers....)

[LanosIceland]

'The surge' has become some kind of a cool buzz word. Is this what modern day politics has become? Buzz words. People seem to forget that Iraq is not a battlefield, but a country, of dense urban and suburban areas. Everyday we hear about 'criminals', 'foreign fighters, islamic militants, insurgents, the enemy', the endless titles given to the people dying every daily. The american public is constantly fed this trash, and encouraged to take part in useless debates about a faceless enemy. Well, I have news for you: The faceless enemy are the people of Iraq, men, women and children. For the almost 3000 dead on 9/11 we have killed at least over 100,000 and created over 2million refugees. We have lost over 4000 of our own and sustained over 30,000 injured soldiers. We have brought only destruction to Iraq and we continue to destroy, that is what soldiers and armies are trained to do, to kill people and destroy things. Have we brought peace, or death? Have we brought occupation, or freedom? Do we have less enemies today, or more friends?
When are the american people finally going to stand up and speak with one voice, and say, enough of the carnage, enough of the blood-lust, enough of the destruction. Where are the Bill Clintons, the Jimmy Carters, the Mandelas, the Tutus and Annans, the Al Gores, the Putins! Where are the peacemakers? The world is sick and tired of 'the madness of King George'.

[LeftRight]

I love how now Petraeus is talking now about a "pause" in troop withdrawal, which is of course, a backdoor "surge", which, of course, was NOT an "escalation" because that would sound too much like Vietnam!

Further, let's consider the fact that the US Army doesn't have the troops needed to continue this surge past late next month. Thus, to "pause" the "surge" means that we will have to extend tours again, cause troops to return after too short a period of time, cut our standards again, and basically make it so that our Army, the one that WE THE PEOPLE pay for, is broken!

[ObGyn]

Not just the surge. It is easy to tell who is winning in Iraq and who is losing. When Bush or Cheney or Rice goes to Iraq, they sneak in unannounced in the middle of the night like thieves. They hurry up and rush back out before it is announced that they had been there. When the Iranian head of state went there, he announced 2 weeks in advance. When he got there he rode from the airport by motorcade. Had a nice long visit then left.

You decide which side is winning.

[RabidRightRebel]

The surge is not a failure it did exactly what it was supposed to do. That is postpone the inevitable civil war until after Bush leaves office so he can blame it on the Democrates.

[epotruchyeahright]

I agree 100%. Just like the "economic stimulus package" is an attempt to postpone the inevitable recession long enough for Bush to leave office and give the Repubs ammo to blame the Dems.

[peterg76]

Precisely. Why is calling Bush a liar so difficult?

[oldpotsmuggler]

Brillianly brief. Can we get you to write political speeches?

[harriscrl3]

You know what this reminds me of. Have you ever decided to do something and you invested a lot of time and energy but you are not getting any rewards and you have two choice you can continue in futility and keep investing hoping that some how it will pay off or you can say to yourself you know its time to give this up the cost has already outweigh the benefits we are knowing getting diminishing return for our effort. If John McCain becomes President we will continue down this futile path for 100 years investing time energy lives money and getting LITTLE in return. This is like the story of Antigone the tragedy is not making the mistake its rather CONTINUING to make the mistake. I'm so disheartened by the continuation of this war.

Carol