The Surge is working?

Newbie Joined: Feb 04, 2008 Posts: 23

Saitou wrote:

Also: Troop surge has worked (not that everything is great).

I hadn't previously given much thought to the surge and whether or not it's working. Since the war is wrong-headed and unConstitutional, saying the surge is working is a lot like saying "Our bank robbery is going smoothly".

Prior to having looked into it, I knew that Sadr either called for, or agreed to a ceasefire, which substantially lowered the level of violence.

I also knew that the number of soldiers there since the surge is far less than the number of soldiers that all of the military experts agreed we would need to effectively occupy Iraq.

What I didn't know was finer points about the Sons of Iraq, a so-called "Awakening Group" that has given up on fighting the American forces, and begun fighting AQI. There are between 80,000 and 160,000 members of these awakening groups, and they are on the US government's payroll.

That's right: the reason the surge appears to be working is that the US Government is paying people not to killed Americans. They are paying them $10 per day. According to a friend of mine who was stationed in Iraq, $10 to the average Iraqi is a good day's wages.

They also timed the Surge to begin about the same time the mixed Sunni/Shiite neighborhoods voluntarily segregated... with bloody results.

Just when you thought it was safe to trust your government...

Also, I want to say right here, that Knight of BAAWA called it. I heard him on voice chat in Yahoo, months prior to the invasion of Iraq, that Iraq is none of our business, and that it will just turn into a bloodbath.

Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:44 pm

I think you're examining this too closely. "Surge" quite deliberately implies excess... as if all was running just fine, but now we've decided to deliver a knockout punch.

If Bush sent too few troops to a war, he shouldn't get away with making a correction *years into it* and having it called a "surge".

It's not a surge. It's a correction to a terrible mistake - for which he is ultimately responsible - delivered to us with the usual spin.

So, is the surge working? No. There is no surge.

Has the adjustment of troop levels improved the situation in Iraq?

Possibly, it's certainly proven to me that many of the deaths in the early years of the war were due to inadequate troop levels. And it's proven to me that the Bush administration has realized and reacted to it's mistake. And the world accepting this "Surge" term has proven to me that the Bush Administration is still actively marketing this war - quite successfully.

Newbie Joined: Jun 16, 2008 Posts: 13

I'm no military analyst, but here's my two cents: The surge is working/worked to reduce casualties in Iraq but has done very little to stabilize Iraq or the region. It's like holding down the lid on a pressure cooker. The minute you ease off it explodes worse than it was before.

McDuffie For Congress is also right in that the "surge" is an extremely late correction to a terrible blunder. I'm personally of the opinion that we should either pull out as quickly as possible or massively increase troop levels to just get it over with (in which case I'd volunteer).

Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 3:45 am