Is the surge working? *Update*

[ProfJohn]

Well it is nice to see that nearly everyone agrees that it seems to be working, so far.

I think there were a lot of people on here who said it would make no difference at all, and they seem to have been proven wrong.

One last thing... before the surge 50 or so people a day were dying in Baghdad. Now the number is 5-10 a day, that means we are saving the lives of 40 people a day. Since the surge has been going on for over 3 weeks now it would not be to far off the mark to say that the surge has prevented the deaths of as many as a 1000 people.

Let's just hope the Iraq political leaders can take this time and come up with a long term solution to their many problems.

 

[DealMonkey]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Is the surge working?

It does seem quieter in Iraq. Let's see how long it lasts.

 

[tomywishbone]

It ain't workin' you sheep. 10's-of-thousands are yet to die. 100's-of-billions are yet to be wasted. It's all a giant sick lie. Mass murder & Civil war... nothing else.

bushler is laughing at all of us.

 

[Double Trouble]

Clearly, if you put thousands of additional soldiers in a (relatively small) area, you will be able to reduce violence and criminal activity somewhat in that area.

However, I don't see how that fixes anything. The bad guys will simply go to the areas outside of Bagdad and continue as before. Then, when at some point the US has to reduce the number of troops, things will continue as before.

Fundamentally, I don't think there is a military solution to a non-military problem. The problem seems to be a political/civil/sectarian one, not a military one. In the long run, no military solution will work, and Iraq will inevitably descend into further civil war.

 

[Lemon law]

Count on non-Prof john to come up with another whopper when he says---Well it is nice to see that nearly everyone agrees that it seems to be working, so far.

And I don't now if anyone else has noticed---but US troop deaths are up sharply---a year ago they tended to be in the 15 a week range and stayed about constant---now it seems to be running close to 30.

If the surge is ever tested in a real way---we will be up to a 100/wk or more.

And as to the no news is good news----its really only means no news is no news.

To be fair and balanced---its possible that the present quiet could start a trend for the Iraqi government to assert some control---and that in turn could turn things around. But at the same time events are moving and any number of very bad outcomes are possible from an almost endless list of
groups large and small.

The most dangerous illusion that we can have is that the USA will be granted infinite time to fix the mess before some event ignites a mid-east meltdown. And on the minus side---the surge could be that triggering event.

 

[tomywishbone]

The surge is working!

Victory

Glory

Democracy

Love & Freedom

 

[First]

Originally posted by: tomywishbone
The surge is working!

Victory

Glory

Democracy

Love & Freedom

Ouch. Close this garbage thread.

 

[tomywishbone]

Just think of me as george bush, or dick cheney, or condy rice. I'm just sitting here lying my ass off, as the truth bleeds to death in the streets.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: tomywishbone
The surge is working!

Victory

Glory

Democracy

Love & Freedom

And if I post a bunch of pics of kids playing in the street and handing flowers to soldiers it would be proof of something?

No one said that ALL the violence has stopped, but compared to what we saw pre-surge there has been a HUGE drop off.

 

[johnnobts]

yep, its working, giving the iraqis more time to train troops, more time to reconcile political leaders. but the bottom line is that most of these posters are invested in our defeat in iraq. they want us to fail, plain and simple. none of their "alternatives" are even legitimate. leaving entirely immediately is a loser. asking iran and syria to "bring peace" is ludicrous.

 

[UberNeuman]

Originally posted by: johnnobts
yep, its working, giving the iraqis more time to train troops, more time to reconcile political leaders. but the bottom line is that most of these posters are invested in our defeat in iraq. they want us to fail, plain and simple. none of their "alternatives" are even legitimate. leaving entirely immediately is a loser. asking iran and syria to "bring peace" is ludicrous.

How long should the U.S. play babysitter to Iraq? Thing is, that no matter how long we remain, the problem will still be there...

and I love your Reagan sig - reminds me of the Reagan's friend, Jean Dixon.....

 

[tomywishbone]

"And if I post a bunch of pics of kids playing in the street and handing flowers to soldiers it would be proof of something? "


Sure, lets take a look. Just make sure the pics are recent and taken outside the Green Zone. Good luck.

 

[First]

Originally posted by: johnnobts
yep, its working, giving the iraqis more time to train troops, more time to reconcile political leaders. but the bottom line is that most of these posters are invested in our defeat in iraq. they want us to fail, plain and simple. none of their "alternatives" are even legitimate. leaving entirely immediately is a loser. asking iran and syria to "bring peace" is ludicrous.

Going into Iraq in the first place was ludicrous, with absolutely no credible intelligence to boot. No confirmation of WMD intel from CIA, MI6, or any other credible sources.

This war will not be won because it can't be won. The best that can be salvaged is getting out with minimal losses and hoping the Iraqi government can sustain itself without Iran or other terrorists taking it over. The war effort in Afghanistan and sending more operatives to Saudi Arabia is by far more important than the disaster known as Iraq.

 

[maluckey]

What i can see elsewhere in Iraq (First-hand) tells me that the news is mostly wrong, as are many of the posters in AT concerning Iraqi issues.

The Iraqi only want us here so long as it serves them. They have little interest in our way of seeing or doing things, and they are not concerned with civil war. They are sick of the AIF and sectarian violence, but are not fully prepared to fix it at the moment. Great strides are being made, but they are just now seeing that they can change anything at all.

Under Saddam, nobody made decisions except Saddam. For something as simple as a highway grant in a Province, Saddams ministers had to be contacted, and then they (the requestors) would have wait on the money to eventually come for the project. Medicine was all shipped to Baghdad, then after Baghdad took what it wanted, was allowed to be disbursed to the Provinces. The same for power and water.

It will take time and lots of burning of the midnight oil, but this will be fixed by the Iraqi and in a manner that suits the Iraqis. Combat Troops cannot fix this. Never will.

 

[Lemon law]

malucky may have put the finger on the precise spot when he points out--Under Saddam, nobody made decisions except Saddam.

The point being---with Saddam now gone---no one is making decisions at all. The neocon theorists that so successfully managed the call for an Iraqi invasion forgot to plan for repairing Iraqi infrastructure. And now Iraqi infrastructure still is not up to pre-invasion levels. Almost no running water, almost no electricity, and almost no running water. And absolutely no accountability for the army of 100,000 plus military contractors we have in place looting both Iraqi and the US treasury.

In terms of the democratically elected Iraqi government---which can't agree in principle and therefore can't even start getting anything done, it just leads to the conclusion that no one is in charge. With the Iraqi man or woman on the street now looking at their fourth straight year of the Katrina treatment.

And we wonder why we are cursed and hated for bringing the blessing of freedom---when all we have brought is defacto anarchy and random acts of violence.

Is it any wonder that a home grown insurgency will grow in place to fill that void and bring some structure to total chaos?

 

[eleison]

who would have thought.... adding more troops is working... oh, well at least the violence is down...

 

[piasabird]

I think the worst part may be is this is how the Military wanted to run the war, bur Rumsfeld got rid of all the generals with any backbone.

The concept of a smaller more efficient military just does not work. We need to spend more on defense, because we just downsized too much. You can destroy an army quickly, but you still need more troops to hold the ground you take and keep the peace.

The funny thing is the Left wanted to get rid of Rumsfeld because he did not use enough troops and now that we use more troops they dont like it. This leads me to believe that they are just a bunch of Benedict Arnolds, and that they never really supported the troops to begin with.

 

[Lemon law]

Wrong again, piasabird.

If Rummy had sent in enough troops to begin with, the insurgency likely never would have started.

Now here we are now, four years later, the insurgency has incubated from a baby into a full grown monster, and we face a totally new problem that a military cannot solve.

Rather than lash out at the dems who were powerless to alter the course of the war for three of the four years of its existence-----I suggest you look at the one common denominator---namely our commander and thief who fails to support our troops or to even expends any efforts to provide them medical care when they come home.

How dare you even posit GWB&co. gives a damn about our troops.

 

[imported_Shivetya]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
How dare you even posit GWB&co. gives a damn about our troops.

They care more than the other side, unfortunately its not enough to matter. The problem is that the troops don't constitute a large enough electorate for either side to really care. They are just pawns to be used by whichever side needs them to either guilt or aggravate the other party.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: piasabird
The funny thing is the Left wanted to get rid of Rumsfeld because he did not use enough troops and now that we use more troops they dont like it.

That is kind of ironic.

 

[jman19]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: piasabird
The funny thing is the Left wanted to get rid of Rumsfeld because he did not use enough troops and now that we use more troops they dont like it.

That is kind of ironic.

To be fair, don't you think there is a difference between going to war with many more soldiers, than there is increasing the number of troops 3+ years later?

And before the flames come, I'm not a Democrat apologist. They seem well on their way to screwing things up as well, though perhaps not as bad as Bush and Co.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: jman19
To be fair, don't you think there is a difference between going to war with many more soldiers, than there is increasing the number of troops 3+ years later?

And before the flames come, I'm not a Democrat apologist. They seem well on their way to screwing things up as well, though perhaps not as bad as Bush and Co.

You are right, we screwed up when it came to the number of troops.
Rummy was right in that we didn't need 500,000 troops to win the initial war.

Where our screw up occurred was is not realizing that we might see a strong insurgency emerge after our victory and that the insurgency would then lead to a state of semi-civil war.

It was a screw up do to 'unforeseen circumstances.' Of course the job of the people in charge is to predict these types of things, and in this case they failed. The sad thing is that we reacted about a year to late with the surge.
Warfare is not an exact science though. 20,000 soldiers died in the battle for Iwo Jima; a small island with no real strategic importance. Far more people died fighting to secure the island than would have died if we had just ignored it and went after more important targets. At the time though it made sense to secure the island.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: eleison
who would have thought.... adding more troops is working... oh, well at least the violence is down...

I think it goes beyond just adding more troops. IIRC we've had troop levels this high before.

Under Gen. Patreus there are now new rules of engagement and tactics.

Fern

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: eleison
who would have thought.... adding more troops is working... oh, well at least the violence is down...

I think it goes beyond just adding more troops. IIRC we've had troop levels this high before.

Under Gen. Patreus there are now new rules of engagement and tactics.

Fern

And when we leave or scale down the violence will pick up. Do you suggest that we stay there indefinately?

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: eleison
who would have thought.... adding more troops is working... oh, well at least the violence is down...

I think it goes beyond just adding more troops. IIRC we've had troop levels this high before.

Under Gen. Patreus there are now new rules of engagement and tactics.

Fern

And when we leave or scale down the violence will pick up. Do you suggest that we stay there indefinately?

Indefinitely? I shy away from that word, to me it's the flip side of "never say never". But to address you question:

Going with your assumption (bolded above) - I think our response depends on a couple of things:

What is the level of increased violence? Is it something the government of Iraq can handle? If so, no need for us to stay; unless it's a temporary extension to asist with training etc.

What is the source of the increased violence? I read a NYT paper, today's article says yesterdays 2 car bombings are Al Qiada's work. So, if the Iraqi's ask us to stay to help fight AQ, I'm OK with that at this point.

There's a religious split between the Iranian & Iraqi Shia, a big difference in philosophy. Particularly, and importantly IMHO, as regards control of governemnt by Islamic clergy. If that's the source and Iraqis want want help, I'm OK with that ATM.

Instead of continuing with examples I'll just say if it's from outside sources, I'd seriously consider staying & helping if they asked.

If it's purely inside domestic sectarian violence? No way am I for anything close to indefinite. I do think their goivernemnt needs some time to get it's act together. Not only do I believe that building good/strong government institutions (DOJ, banking, etc) take time (and they're going to have to do it faster than we did), but you can't "build stuff" when you're busy "running around putting out fires" (literally in their case).

If they revert into chaos, I think think the global economy as is presently situated vis-a-vis oil consumption will collapse. In Fern's ideal world we would have spent $300 billion developing alt energy technologies so we don't need ME oil. Then we could mostly just ignore these people. Not necessarily advocating an isolationist policy, it's just they have nothing other than oil we can tade for/use.

I had something else I thought was relevent, but I'm doing tax work in between and I've lost the thought?

Fern