Escalation Architect Kagan: ‘Whatever You Can Say About The Current Strategy, It Has Not Failed’

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/09/kagan-escalation-success/

Escalation Architect Kagan: ‘Whatever You Can Say About The Current Strategy, It Has Not Failed’

Today, the American Enterprise Institute, a neoconservative think tank, held a discussion entitled “Assessing the Surge in Iraq,” featuring prominent Iraq war proponents like Fred Kagan, Gen. Jack Keane, and James Miller of the Center for a New American Security.

Bush’s escalation was largely inspired by a October 2006 paper written by Kagan, who stated that the U.S. needed to “re-enter Iraq in large numbers.” In today’s conference, Kagan claimed there was a “general agreement” that “violence overall is down” but refused to provide any factual evidence for those arguments:

The worst that can be said of at this point is that the results have been mixed. I frankly think the results are less mixed…We can argue about statistics, but at the end of the day, that argument is not going to get us anywhere right now. … Whatever you can say about the current strategy, it has not failed.

Watch it at link~

Desperate to defend his failing strategy, Kagan refused to provide statistical backup for his broad assertions that escalation is showing progress. In April, he claimed “we are turning a corner in Iraq,” again without statistical backup, only to see May become deadliest month for American troops this year.

Looking at some key statistics, it is clear that the escalation has been a bloody failure. Even by simply looking at the past couple of months — when Kagan alleges the escalation officially began — the situation has deteriorated:

– The deadliest bomb killing over 150 in Baghdad was “one of the deadliest single bombings, if not the deadliest, since the 2003 invasion.”

– 117 coalition soldiers died in June, the third deadliest month this year. So far in July, 28 have died.

– Approximately 2,600 Iraqi civilians died in June and 3,000 in May, up from 2,500 in February, when the first troops of the escalation began to arrive.

[TwilightGardener]

1. OK, it hasn't failed. It got a D-minus-minus-minus. That better?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. And it's on double secret probation.

[stellanoir]

3. Yup it has not failed.

Their singularly idiotic and illegal goals of depopulating the country, rendering it unlivable, plundering it's resources, and occupying forever are just going swimmingly and fantastically well.

/sarcasm

[maxsolomon]

4. i don't remember voting for the AEI

who appointed the AEI the 4th branch of government?

fuck the AEI.

and the Discovery Institute, for good measure.

[jimshoes]

5. When your car engine conks out ,

I don't call that a failure either, but the engine isn't working just the same.

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. Nor did Barbarossa.

[old guy]

7. Idiots!

It reminds me of a fighter who has been beaten senseless telling his corner "if you hadn't stopped the fight, I wadda won. I had him right where i wanted him"!

[redphish]

8. I was a bit to young to pay attention to politics in the mid 60's

but I can picture Robert McNamara saying the same thing.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. There are two ways to tell if a neoconservative is lying:

1. His lips are moving; or
2. There is printed verbage beneath his by-line.

[Solly Mack]

10. the cacoethes of the desperate - to find oneself an architect of failure

how craven the answer that is hitched to - and contingent upon - denial

how ugly the hope as well...

[jpgray]

11. "Whatever you say about a plan that's going to fail, it hasn't failed yet"

Fixed.

[Jacobin]

12. that's true. Things are still just as good/bad (pick one) as they were before

:evilgrin:

[Odin2005]

13. He and Kristol are proof that being an idiologue makes you stupid.

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. Why should a far right 'think' tank suddenly get something right?

The monkeys and the complete works of Shakespeare sounds great in principle, but I doubt it would ever work, no matter how long they pounded those keys.

[supernova]

15. "Whever you can say about your current state of mind, it's not sane."