ABC reports the surge is working.

Sigh...

 

Tell me about it in 50 years when said island is still there and thriving.

 

Yeah, because I can't think of anything that has happened in Iraq during the last four years that would give one reason to be skeptical.

So this means that John McCain could walk through a Baghdad marketplace with a bulletproof vest and, say, only 75 armed soldiers, two helicopters and one gunship in tow?

Just like Philadelphia. Or Detroit. Or -- and this is my favorite right-wing comparison, by far -- an Indiana small-town market in the summer.

Good news, yes. For today. But I and many others have skepticism, which the architects of this, the world's dumbest war, have earned, several times over.

And if my saying that leaves you full of righteous indignation or the stupid-ass "You liberals want our troops to fail!" tripe . . . in six months, or a year, when Iraq remains a sinkhole, can we resurrect this thread and throw it back in your face?

 

No, we won't be able to, because that would be "political" which is bad when you're talking about politicians and their bungling.

 

I understand why people are desperate for any bit of good news out of Iraq. But the "surge is working" crowd needs to answer one question: What gives you any reason to believe that the insurgents/terrorists/Mahdi Army/etc. aren't just lying low until enough order is restored that Bush declares victory and brings the troops home? They weren't dumb enough to fight the U.S. military conventionally 49 months ago; why wouldn't they adopt a similar strategy now? Keep a low profile, get out of town for a while, and then resume raising hell once we draw down troop levels in Baghdad.

Here's the thing: All roads likely lead to the same conclusion.
Immediate withdrawal -- civil war erupts.
Fixed deadline for withdrawal -- civil war erupts.
Surge creates some semblance of order in Baghdad, then we leave -- civil war erupts.

 

That's what I hopes happens.

And I prefer not to be called "the surge is working crowd," if you don't mind.

 

I didn't mean to single you out as such. But these promising stories strike me as devoid of context or relevance to the big picture. Sort of like the "It snowed in mid-April, so global warming can't exist" or "It was 72 degrees in February in Buffalo; that's proof of global warming!" threads that tend to pop up. There have been lots of small success stories in this war (someone mentioned Tal Afar earlier), but most of them have gone sour in time.

 

This is unbelievable. Truly unbelievable.

In a war that we were told would last maybe six weeks, surely not six months, in a war that has been so grossly mismanaged after the initial invasion that the country is now significantly more violent than when we went in, in a war in which we have seriously contemplated digging a trench around one city because we couldn't control it otherwise, in a war in which thousands of American soldiers have died for no clear reason, in a war that we were told was over several years ago, in a war that anyone with the least bit of objectivity can see that we've lost due to sheer and utter incompetence and stubbornness, WE ARE NOW APPLAUDING THE FACT THAT WE CAN STOP DOZENS OF PEOPLE FROM DYING ON A DAILY BASIS IN CERTAIN AREAS OF ONE CITY.

Yeah, sounds like victory to me.

Bring. Them. Home.

 

It's been reported all over the place that al-Sadr told his people to lay low in the months following Ramadan. We just telegraphed this surge and its targets for two or three months before it happened. If it were a surprise and we decimated the enemy, I'd say sure. But seriously, this whole "surge" reminds me of Wag the Dog.

 

that's right. Everyone against the war hopes we lose.

 

I thought I was the only one.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1604931.ece

Sure is.