Is the surge working?

[hfojvt]

The M$M seems to think so, and so does a recent Op-ed in my local paper.

So I am working on an LTTE, and here is what I have so far.

First, on Mar. 26, 2004, Joseph Perkins wrote an Op-ed titled "Why the Iraq war is a success". Before he retired, Perkins columns were featured in my paper and so were my LTTEs calling Perkins mean-spirited and factually challenged. My point being that Republicans have "declared imminent victory" almost every week since the Iraq war began.

Since the surge began, there have been 806 US casualties. The numbers for the last four months are low - 38, 37, 23, 40. However, that's not the first time this has happened either. December 2003 - March 2004, the numbers were 40, 47, 20 and 52. May 2003 - September 2003, the numbers were 37, 30, 48, 35, 31.

According to Iraq Body Count, which gets numbers from multiple news reports, 53 Iraqi civilians died per day in 2007. That's over 19,000 people per year. That's better than 2006, when 64 Iraqis died per day, but worse than 2005 when only 32 died per day.

It's costing billions of dollars. Bush got another $120,000,000,000 supplemental in May 2007 and is asking for another $102,400,000,000. That's over $2,000 per household just in the last 18 months, and it is enriching contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater.

Finally, if the surge is working, what's the estimate for when our troops will come home? Republicans won't say, but McCain said it might be 50 to 100 years.

[bluestateguy]

1. This month was the worst since October

661 Iraqi civillian and security forces killed, and the month isn't over yet. In October there were 679.

[Botany]

2. No .... "the surge" was for domestic consumption so as to buy time for Bush

Rolling Stone .... great article

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18722376/the_myth_of_the_surge

The Myth of the Surge

Hoping to turn enemies into allies, U.S. forces are arming Iraqis who fought with the insurgents.
But it's already starting to backfire. A report from the front lines of the new Iraq

[FiveGoodMen]

3. It's working as intended. (Goes without saying, I know)

More money for Halliburton.

More flag waving at home.

More civil rights taken away.

Dems afraid to do anything about it.

The M$M is just Bush's mouthpiece so, of course, they think it's working too.

[TwilightGardener]

4. It's working, because we're still there, until the end of the Chimpy administration--

that's all it was meant to do--prolong the occupation. And it's working as long as billions of our dollars are flowing into defense contractors' pockets, and the oil is being controlled by multinationals, and we keep putting our sons and daughters into the meat grinder to feed the money-making enterprise.

[stellanoir]

5. My guess is that Al Sadr was paid off at least twice to order a cease fire.

wonder of wonders

but we'll never know with these bozo's in charge

[Jed Dilligan]

6. Very good, but I'd change the 1st paragraph

It sounds too partisan and personal and will turn off a lot of readers. Target the letter to the recent op-ed, and maybe just mention that the same article (essentially) came out in 2004. Also, the last sentence of that paragraph is not a complete sentence.

JD's rewrite:

Re (insert title/date of recent op-ed piece here): The arguments here are no different from pro-war arguments regularly published in (insert name of paper) for almost four years, beginning with Joseph Perkins' "Why the Iraq war is a success," published on these pages on March 26, 2004. In this or some other media venue, supporters of the war have declared "imminent victory" in Iraq almost every week since the war began.

Then leave the rest as is.

(I've had letters printed in the SF Chronicle, LA Times, and Sacramento Bee, so I'm not just talking out of my ass!)

[hfojvt]

12. my post was not meant as a letter

just a summary of the facts I had gathered. I mean to make it partisan in a sense, because I would say "Republican leaders". I try to separate Bush from Republican voters. When you say "supporters of the war" aren't many readers gonna think "Hey, I am a supporter of this war". So I try to make the point, that some may have supported the war because they were lied to by this Op-ed, Perkins, Bush and other elected Republicans.

[kentuck]

7. Compared to what?

Are the Sunnis and Shia now holding hands? Are we now bribing them with equal sums of American dollars? What happens when the money stops? It's about the money, not the additional troops.

[coalition_unwilling]

8. The surge's strategic aim was to provide enough security to

allow for political reconciliation. While opinions differ on whether the security situation has actually improved -- I happen to believe these month-over-month metrics are not a reliable indicator of the security situation -- almost everyne agrees that there has been almost no political reconciliation. In other words, Sunnis still hate Shia'a and vice versa.

If the surge truly were working, it would be possible to bring back all of the 30,000 troops used for the surge and more. In fact, the most recent reports indicate that even after the limited troops withdrawals are completed, U.S. troop strength inside Iraq will be at some 140,000. In other words, 10,000 more soldiers than before the surge started will remain in Iraq.

Only by the most twisted reasoning, then, can anyone including McInsane say the surge is "working". Obama should be able to wrap Iraq around McInsane's neck like an albatross (no disrespect to albatrosses). With public opinion showing that 55-60% of Americans now think the invasion\occupation of Iraq a 'mistake' and with upwards of 70% indicating that they want troops home yesterday, it should be a Dem landslide of FDR '32 and LBJ '64 proportions.

[Cant trust em]

9. The surge was supposed to produce political results.

Those results have yet to be realized. With factions that have a long history of being uncooperative (to put it mildly) I have no reason to think that they will be any time soon.

[Cant trust em]

10. In Nov. I watched Lindsay Graham on Fox News Sunday

He said that if there wasn't some political movement by January that he'd be really upset. Hey Lindsay! January has come and gone and you're still supporting the surge.

[IDemo]

11. I just posted my two cents in another thread >>

In a word: no.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2937243

[bdamomma]

13. No and let's call it for what it is ESCALATION.