Shocking News: Surge Not Working
A Pentagon report states what everyone already knows about the results of the surge and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s (lack of) leadership. This is coming from an Army Times article.
A Pentagon report released last week concluded that violence in Iraq edged higher during a four-month period between February and May — despite a U.S.-led security push in Baghdad. The report also raised questions about Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s ability to fulfill a pledge made in January to prohibit political interference in security operations and to allow no safe havens for sectarian militias.
Al-Maliki told USA Today that "terrorism and militias — especially terrorism — cannot be dealt with only by using tanks, guns and aircraft." This isn't the guy that will play hardball with insurgents and al-Qaeda. This is a different tune than what he was singing when he came into office.
As Prime Minister, al-Maliki has vowed to crack down on militias which he calls "organized armed groups who are acting outside the state and outside the law."
Much has been made of how General Petraeus's September report. In Washington, it has served as an unofficial deadline for continued U.S. involvement in Iraq. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has admitted as much on Face the Nation.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said most senators in his party think September is the critical point.
"The proper time to really make a serious evaluation of the direction we ought to head is in September," McConnell said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
It's June and McConnell is very displeased. One can only imagine his mood come September.
``The Iraqi government has been a pretty big disappointment,'' Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican and minority leader, said on CBS's ``Face the Nation'' show. ``We've given them an enormous opportunity here, over the last four years, to have a normal country. And our commitment will not be there forever.''
McConnell is openly discussing pulling troops out of Iraq. This man isn't Chuck Hagel. McConnell is a fierce partisan Republican. If he is jumping off the Iraq bandwagon than the White House is in trouble. Bogart and Bergman will always have Paris. Bush will always have Lieberman.
Labels: al-qaeda, david petraeus, iraq, mitch mcconnell, nouri al-maliki, surge
posted by Michael Hussey @ 9:31 PM
1 Comments
1 Comments:
First let me admit that the war was ignorant, idiotic, and insane from the word go, and that it's even dumber for us to be there now. Let me nevertheless try to make a case for the surge, and then demolish that case.
If you believe that there might be a sort of quarterly seasonal pattern for US deaths in Iraq, you might look at the fact that deaths between April and June went up 'only' (?) 36% from January through March, while they went up 39% between those two periods in 2006. A small problem for that theory is that casualties between those two periods went up only 5% in 2005. So much for the 'seasonal pattern' 'remember Fallujah' theory.
Clearly, instead of more 'boots on the ground' we've arguably been giving them more 'fish in the barrel.' Indeed, most pro-war nuts and Rumsfeld-hating leftists (and pathetic neos still trying to justify their moronic war) need to realize that Rumsfeld probably picked a casualty MINIMIZING number of 150,000 troops (given that we didn't HAVE a million troops) that was a number merely intended to 'hold down the fort' until we could get Iraqi forces trained. Rumsfeld's mistake came in not realizing that Bush's real goal was not a stable Iraq but high oil prices so as to enrich himself, his mistress Conartista Rice, Cheney, and of course the oil-rich Saudis and British. Hence our deliberate failure to train Iraqi forces to replace ours.
Rummy was probably justified in firing Shinseki. 300,000 was probably a US casualty MAXIMIZING number. Beyond that figure, more troops would have brought the casualties down so that at 450,000 troops we'd have had the same casualties we have now, but at three times the expense. ONLY beyond a figure of 450,000 would we probably be having LOWER casualties than we have now, and at about a million troops (the same number the Soviets had in East Germany, a nation which was of comparable population to Iraq) we'd have had no casualties at all. BUT WE DIDN'T HAVE 450,000 troops, MUCH LESS a million, or even 300,000.
This war is idiotic, insane, and ignorant, and the Surge is a maraschino cherry on a doo-doo sundae. Will GOP chameleon Mitt Romney or perhaps sincere true believer Huckabee have the brains to repudiate the Bush Administration? If not, and if Ron Paul is not nominated, the GOP nominee can kiss it goodbye to whatever randomly selected Democrat is nominated. That's what Lugar and Voinovich were saying this week without really coming out and saying it.
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