I'm not sure that I will survive this election. I have endured having every talking point pounded into my head over and over. But one in particular keeps bothering me more than most. It keeps surging into my thoughts.
No matter what question is asked of any and all republican talking heads or candidates, they will work the surge into what they call an answer. "Obama opposed the surge! And the surge was magnificently successful! And he won't even admit it!" And I have yet to hear more than a bare handful of democrats respond with the answer that I believe. Here it is.
At best the surge facilitated the calming of violence. Probably the most effective portion of the tactic was payment of the sunni and recruiting them to oust al queda. I would argue that this only quickened an already occurring phenomena. In Anbar Province the tribal leaders were in the process of restoring their power. Al queda was in the way of this objective and would have been ousted eventually. Simultaneously, the shia had almost accomplished the ethnic cleansing of their neighborhoods. The fact that our soldiers kept viseble once area was cleared marginally helped. But the Iraqi government is still beating around the bush. (No pun intended.) Their progress toward true governmental responsibility has been slow as molasses. When the surge began you may remember that the Iraqis took a two month vacation. And furthermore, many of our commanders including Patreas agree that if we were to pull out a significant number of troops, all progress may be lost. This does not meet my definition of success.
I know that is a really long answer, but I think it is the correct one. It sure would be nice to hear a democrat talk over a republican and say this. Of course, had we never gone into Iraq, none of this would matter.