The Surge Has Been Completely Useless

It's maddening how effective Bush administration propaganda is. They say the surge has been working. They repeat it a million times. Then they get a couple of their cronies inside think tanks, who are paid to say how great they are, say the surge is working. Then they get a couple of generals, who were promoted to say how great they are, say the surge is working. And voila, all you hear in the news is how well the surge is working.

When are the people in the media going to grow a brain? This so-called surge is a disaster, with zero results. Yes, I said zero.

Now let me say something that is going to sound contradictory to their small, little viewpoints (let's call it that, to be generous). Our strategy in the Anbar province is working. But wait, I just said the surge isn't working. How can that be?

That's because our strategy in the Anbar province has NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING to do with the surge. It doesn't involve more U.S. troops. It involves less U.S. troops!

Can someone please use their minds? Has anyone thought for more than three seconds about what our strategy in Anbar is? It is to turn the Sunni insurgency from our enemies to our allies -- so that they do the fighting for us! We do not have more troops fighting in the Anbar province now, we have less.

This is a deal we could have and should have made a long, long time ago. You empower the local tribes, sects and ethnicities to fight for their area of Iraq. They will have an incentive to drive out Al Qaeda and foreign fighters if they think they are going to control the area afterward. If they think they are going to hand it over to the U.S. or to other ethnicities in Iraq, then they won't do it.

So, this is about empowering Iraqis on a local level, not about an escalation of U.S. troops. The Kurds have kept northern Iraq relatively stable because they have an incentive to keep it that way. They know that they will be running it. There's no chance they're going to hand it over to the Shiites or the Sunni Arabs.

This is also a strategy that could be pursued as we withdraw out of Iraq. In fact, it is a strategy tailor made for withdrawal. Empower the locals to keep order as you clear out of an area. Since you are leaving, they will believe you when you say they will run the place. If anything, a U.S. military escalation in a region will hurt this strategy. That's why we have given weapons and money to the Sunni insurgents in the Anbar province and stepped out of the way.

As far as the rest of the surge is concerned, as The Los Angeles Times showed, there is no decrease in violence levels. More people were killed this month than the last. And more people were killed that month than the one before. The number of casualties is higher than it was last year. How many other statistics would you like to use to prove that the violence hasn't gone down?

There are pockets of Iraq where the level of violence is improving. As Newsweek explains, those are the pockets that have already been ethnically cleansed. A majority of the 1.1 million people who have been displaced within Iraq were ethnically cleansed while the so-called surge was happening. How come you hardly ever hear about that on television? Have you ever seen this headline: Surge Leads to Ethnic Cleansing.

I'm not sure the two are correlated, but they certainly happened at the same time. At the very least, the vaunted surge did absolutely nothing to stop the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad. Yet, all we hear is what a lovely success the surge has been. If the surge tried to be more unsuccessful, I don't know how it could have done a better job.

More Americans killed, more Iraqi civilians killed and more ethnic cleansing. And oh yeah, no political reconciliation among the Iraqis at all. Zero. How could the surge be any less successful?

Now, when Petraeus and Crocker come and tell us what we already know they are going to tell us -- and what they were hired to tell us -- that their surge is working just fine, will we take them seriously? My guess is, absolutely. The media and the Congress will pretend that they are neutral arbiters of the facts on the ground and have a whole new round of stories about how well the surge is working.

Petraeus defending the surge he engineered and executed? Wow, I didn't see that coming. It might as well have been called the Petraeus surge (by the way, you should read the horribly wrong assessment of Iraq that Gen. Petraeus wrote in Sept. 2004; if he was so wrong about Iraq and his work there three years ago, why should we trust his judgment about Iraq now?) .

I would hope that the Democratic Congressmen would hold his feet to the fire and really challenge his spin on his surge. But that would be hoping against hope. My guess is that they will be far more likely to get blinded by the shiny stars on his uniform and intimidated out of the room by the fact that he wears a uniform.

Will anyone challenge the nonsensical notion that this surge is working to Petraeus' face? Or will the Democrats profusely thank him for his service and then meekly talk about how they slightly disagree with his assessment later? You and I know both know the answer to that question. So, expect another round of credulous "news" stories about how the mighty and brilliant General Petraeus says the surge is working. So it must be.

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Comments

[bimplebean]

An excellent summation. We need to let the Iraqis know that we're LEAVING and that THEY are going to have to get their act together.

[stupidme]

Even Cenk continues to call it a "surge." "Surge" is Republican, Luntz, Rovian word. It is no wonder that Dem / Libs / Progs can't past square one, they even use Bushspeak. Gang ... it isn't a surge, it's an "Escalation;" and nothing but an Escalation!

[Senzasord]

Not surge--- Splurge.

Bush wants to keep the entire region in turmoil in order to keeep Iraq oil from the market so his oil buddies can maximize profits on their existing stocks.

We pay the bill both in blood and treasure, and the price is outrageous.

[SamThornton]

Cenk Uygur asks: "When are the people in the media going to grow a brain?"

I assume this is a rhetorical question. Given the seemingly nonsensical patter of the press or the media or whatever we're calling it today, I think a more cogent question is to what degree the media is subject to official censorship and to what degree they are required by our shiny new security state to report some stories with a particular, official spin.

Unless there is some degree of official control of the press, much of its blatantly childish reporting simply defies imagination. Surely adults can't be responsible for this nonsense unless under extreme duress.

[Indiana]

The people in the media will grow a brain when they also grow a pair. Right now, being corporate-owned, they must stand behind a business-friendly administration because they know that's the side their bread is buttered on. There's little of the sort of moral courage the Fourth Estate's supposed to display: you'll never see anything hard-hitting either about what a waste this "surge" in Iraq is when the money would better be used at home for such things as rebuilding New Orleans and shoring up our damaged infrastructure.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

When El Busho made his speech in January 2007 proposing the surge, he warned that violence might increase. Duh.

But he said that was a necessary risk in pursuit of the long-term goal of providing the security environment (then prospective increased deaths aside) in which POLITICAL RECONCILIATION could take place.

That was the only goal El Busho said mattered, and was the goal that was the pretense and sole reason for undertaking the surge.

And on THAT goal, the surge has not failed in some comparative metric (i.e., trend in deaths per month, deaths in month X this year over last), it has failed in a simple binary notion: the Sunnis have walked out on the once-joint, now-Shiite, government.

We need not even rehash the paradox of El Busho in January 2007; the Iraqis need to earn our continued support through actions of their own, vs., our continued military presence is in our national self-interest to prevent another 9/11.

Sunni butts in government seats (cabinet or legislature) = 0. Surge = 0.

Note that the Surgin' General Petraeus UNDERCUT the nominal political-unity goal by cutting deals directly with the Sunni insurgents, er, excuze me, "militias." For which he didn't need any troop increase whatsoever, and for which PM al-Maliki asked earlier this summer that Petraeus be removed.

Last (and thanks for reading), Republican parrot John Boner (sic), accusing REALISTS of quibbling that an attempt to "kick an 80-yard field goal fell 20 or so short" is revolting. His man defined the goal, then 45 yards out, and now he's moving the goalposts... given the ball didn't even make it back to scrimmage.

[Dap]

Why can't anyone get it through their heads, *IRAQ* is the wrong place to keep their focus, Iraq has always been about Iran.

The long term goal is *IRAN*, Iraq is a strategic and tactical staging point and buffer for a military attack on the Iranians, Iraq was not about taking down Saddam, although that took place, Iraq, was not about democracy, although an Iraqi government was established, Iraq was not about freedom, and was never the intention.

Iraq, was always about Iran and their moving into the nuclear age.

So do all the figuring ya want about Iraq, it does not mean a thing, because Iran is the goal, the target, the real military objective. To understand what did happen, what is happening, and what will happen in Iraq, look to Iran. It's really that simple. They are not mutually exclusive, they are *peas in a pod*.

Make no mistake about it.

[Deaf Kevin]

I like YOUR plan, Cenk! And if there's any surgin' going on, it oughta be us surgin' our ass outa there!

[jhNY]

The media is actively complicit in the continuation of the war in Iraq and in the endless "war on terror". It is foolish by now (although touchingly nostalgic) to look to what are still called major newspapers or networks for an honest take in hard news stories or a fair representation of opinions in roundtable discussions. Instead, they might be more usefully understood as fountainheads of misdirection and induced hysteria in which a very few decent people continue to work as if it were not so.

Our republic has been kidnapped and strangled, and it won't be revived. We are presently the thralls of a fascist corporatist kleptocracy whose real business is done behind an elegant statue of democracy that boasts an endlessly deliberative legislative branch for a figleaf. A very few decent people continue to work in that branch as if it were not so.

Since we live in a kleptocracy, the surge is working. Just like the war has always been a success, and will be, however long it lasts. Because the purpose of the war is to control the price of oil and to funnel the contents of the US treasury to cronies allied with the regime.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

[Indiana]

Pity the "fascist corporatist kleptocracy" hasn't figured out how it might profit from a rebuilt, repopulated New Orleans. Then, perhaps, we'd see real progress rebuilding that city....

[jhNY]

If New Orleans were to be repopulated with its former citizenry, it would make it harder to swing the state to the republican party in the next "election." New Orleans' biggest mistake in its hopes for a future was to be populated with a democratic party majority before Katrina hit town.

[tommo]

I believe all the "peace and prosperity" in Iraq is due to Bush's visit. He should move there, be there full time, working with the political entities, negotiating, giving pep talks. We certainly don't need him here.

Besides, he spends every spare moment at that phony "ranch" in the armpit of the nation. He thrives on the heat, he'd love it. And Barney too.

[Indiana]

Bush's visit to Iraq was all a photo-op. And remember his visit to New Orleans where he used lit-up Jackson Square as a backdrop in order to make all of his unkept promises to bring that city back? Once he was speaking, Jackson Square was plunged back into the post-flood darkness....

[ihavenobias]

Cenk, great points like this are why I listen to your show (well, that and the humor).

As usual, you've nailed it.

PS---Thanks again for starting Enough:

dfalink.com/group.php?id=2337

[Ani]

Thank you for your excellent post, Cenk. I've decided we're all like crows ... we're mesmerized by bright and shiny stars and words, but all we really manage is to contribute to making a mess below our congregation.

When we learn critical thinking, we'll listen differently to the spin we're in. Keep talking to us, Cenk. Keep helping us think our way out of the messes we make, and maybe, oh just maybe, we'll see those bright objects differently. Maybe we'll discover that truth to power will save us, whereas shiny objects only serve to blind us.

[magi]

The American people have had a disturbing tendency to fall for whatever line of detritus they've been fed by the administration and Faux News. After the Saddam-Osama b.s. and the weapons of mass destruction, b.s., the polls say we're swallowing the surge-is-working b.s., hook, line and phony photo ops. No way are the neocons who put the presidential puppet in power going to give up their dream of an American power base in the heart of the Mideast. Not when there's that much of the world's oil reserves under the sand. It was sad watching recent interviews with "average Americans," typified by a sweet, grandmotherly old lady who said that "It's what I always taught my boys. You have to finish what you start." In other words, stay in Iraq until the last American soldier --and our economy -- have both been laid to rest.

[oldpotsmuggler]

McNeil show on PBS last night interviewed four House members, all recently in Iraq, on "The Surge". At one point it was mentioned that a plan to begin withdrawl would pass now in the house, whereas it had recently only nearly passed.

And then the makeup of the group was one woman for withdrawl (Dem) and three men (I Dem & 2 Rep) to stay. When did PBS get co-opted to the point where they start stacking Congressional panels to favor the point of view of the current administration? I mean the Good Lady gave better than she got, but there's only so many misstatements that can be corrrected when they are coming from three different directions at once. This seems to be indicative of where things are going to go in the September round.

When there was soild discussion in support of trying the Impeachment route, I started getting that warm, fuzzy feeling. Where did it go? Impeachment is one of those things that has to be served hot, or it's not even worth taking a shot at.

Too bad, also, because things look like they go quickly down hill from here if some way is not found to get Impeachment not only back on the menu, but at the top of public discourse. Bushco is by far the most nefarious lot to have ever soiled the upper levels of our government, and those folks need to have something other than their own dastardly plans to keep their tiny little brains focused on.

Here's wishing!

[Rhogg]

All the congrees needs to do,is tell bush he can have every penny he wants for the war if we enact a full military draft with no deferments.End of Iraq.

[Robert59]

That's where you're wrong Cenk. The surge has been very useful. While it hasn't accomplished anything of militarily strategic value it's allowed Team Bush to manipulate the media and proffer the same success story it's peddling to the rest of us.

Congress will give Bush his 50 billion dollars which will promptly go into the pockets of all the defense contractors who are making a killing over there.

I can't help but wonder if Bush and Cheney don't have secret bank accounts somewhere where defense contractors send kickback money to.

Things that make you go 'hmmmm'.

[Brennial]

Keith Olbermann has kept a running tally of how many days it's been since the infamous declaration of "Mission accomplished," but what I really want to know is a running tally of how much Bush and Cheney and their families have profited personally from stock options, deferred salaries, and positions within the companies who got all these no-bid contracts. Why hasn't someone with the resources to get this information started posting that? It's pretty easy to find out that the entire Cheney family is making money from a whole cabal of oil and war interests, and the Bush's as well. Please, Cenk- pass this idea on to someone who can do it (and all of us) justice.

[cynicaloptimist]

I second that. HuffPo had a list of lobbying monies, large amounts from who to who. I'd like for mainstream news to detail all the profiteers (and who stands to profit) from war in Iraq. They should list members "serving" in gov't who have seen enormous gains in wealth, which companies raked it in, and investigate the millions and billions lost to graft.

[Robert59]

I second the motion Brennial.