Is There Any Actual Evidence That The Escalation/Surge Is Working?

[MannyGoldstein]

Any objective evidence?

Or is this just more spew from the people who brought us "nukes in Iraq"? (And which is being swallowed hook, line, and sinker by certain Democrats.)

[bluerum]

1. You mean besides more dead people and richer defense industry executives? eom

[phaseolus]

2. Repubs are thinking several moves ahead

Of course they're going to claim it's a great success -- they're only planting a meme. Then, for the 3 or 4 election cycles following an American pullout they can point to a chaotic Iraq, recall their false 'the surge was working' meme, and charge Democrats with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and claim that our side sucks at defense and terror-fightin'.

Never mind that most Repubs will also be in favor of pulling out by the time we wind things down, and that it's their side that made a big frickin' mess over there in the first place...

[StClone]

3. That File is next to Saddam's WMDs

Welcome to what ever Bush says goes world.

[Demeter]

4. Of Course Not! We're an Empire Now--We Make Our Own Reality

Didn't you get the memo? We don't need no Steenking facts! If you need facts, Karl will whip some up fresh for you and include them in the daily talking points.

[kenny blankenship]

5. Already more US kia in Iraq this month than this time last year, and still abt a week to go.

If that's progress, then it's progress that's strictly of the "We've slowed the rate at which our monthly casualties have been increasing" variety.

[Capn Sunshine]

9. well, see, there ya go. We can succeed if we try. Soon, KIA's will be at an all time high!

Oh wait. That's not what we're shooting for.
Never Mind

[kenny blankenship]

16. inventory turnover is good! New soldiers mean new uniforms, new rifles, new Humvees

Billions of bullets used up in occupation. Orders coming in at a breakneck pace.
Good business is where you find it.

[Mz Pip]

6. Maybe

in a 'whack-a-mole' kind of way. Thing is even if the violence calms down in one place, it just pops up somewhere else. It's not a good military strategy and should be obvious to anyone with a brain that it really solves nothing in the long run.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[theoldman]

7. It all depends on how you define working.

It will work as long as we remain in Iraq. Lets say we leave 10 years from now. The insurgents will then return and things will be back to where they were before the surge. Except for making things worse, the surge is not working.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. Define working?

Is our occupation continuing? Yes. So on that level the surge is working.
Have the insurgents defeated the puppet government? No. So on that level the surge is working.

We are in a stalemate, a quagmire. It is possible that we could kill Iraqis often enough for long enough that they would eventually give up and accept our rule, it just isn't very likely, and we aren't killing them at nearly the level of atrocity that would acheive that depraved goal.

The question is wrong. The occupation is wrong. 'Victory' whatever that might mean would be wrong.

[frogcycle]

10. there is no actual definition of "working"

since they never stated a specific goal

it was to buy time, which so far it has done

[kenny blankenship]

13. "Working" would be providing a more relaxed atmosphere in Iraq, allowing factions in gov't

to come closer together to sort out differences on very contentious subjects like the Oil Law, etc.

Instead the government of Nouri Al-Maliki has been flying apart with this party withdrawing, then that party withdrawing. The Sunni tribal-sectarian leaders seem to be intensifying their anti-Shia anti-gov't rhetoric, if that were possible, in rough synchronization with our "new tactics" shift to give them arms and recognition. They aren't the govt, they aren't elected, but we seem to be treating them as if they were the sovereign power in Anbar Province. Could it be that they are construing our military aid to them as encouragement to dig in their heels, refuse to deal with the Shia majority govt and eventually declare themselves separate from Iraq?

Maybe the Saudis have persuaded Bush to help foster a secession of western Sunnis, protected behind permanent detachments of US troops? That would give the Saudis what they want which is a Sunni buffer state between them and Iran or Iranian influenced Iraq, and it would give Bush a reason why US troops could never leave Iraq. The potential for a large scale civil war between Anbar and the Shia dominated center-south of Iraq is immediate and will never go away as long as Baghdad claims Anbar Province as part of Iraq.

[NYC]

11. What is the objective of the surge?

I've forgotten.

[AndyTiedye]

12. They Are Getting the Mighty Slime Machine to Say It's Working. That's Good Enough for Them

[killbotfactory]

14. When we send in a bunch of soldiers to a town

the insurgents go away after a while.

Now if only we could heavily occupy every town, forever.

[AtomicKitten]

15. Some Republicans are doing 10-hour fly-bys in Iraq --

and coming back reporting "progress."

The federal government is now releasing ads using soldiers' families as bait, saying we're making "progress" and we can't leave Iraq now.

They are digging in their heels and ratcheting up the propaganda machine.

I still maintain IMPEACHMENT is the only thing that will slow these bastards down.