What did Bush's surge in Iraq Accomplish?

[Tony_FLADEM]

Did the surge help allow a political settlement take place? No

They are still fighting in Iraq, so why does Obama need to give Bush any credit?

[FiveGoodMen]

1. As much as Obama's surge in Afghanistan will.

[JuniperLea]

3. It was an honest question...

Why must the Obama hate come into this? No good reason.

[FiveGoodMen]

6. My reply made perfect sense. It was on point.

Why the Obama hate?

Because he's doing the same bad things as Bush.

Why was there Bush hate?

[JuniperLea]

7. No it wasn't... the two are no where near the same...

Obama didn't start any wars. He's trying to end them. Yet he can't even get credit for that... on fucking DEMOCRATIC Underground.

:banghead:

[FiveGoodMen]

8. He's trying to end the war by escalating it?

Even though they beat back the USSR?

Really?

[JuniperLea]

19. I don't pretend to know the military reasons why...

But I do know this practice of escalation before pulling out completely is far from a new idea. Viet Nam, Korea, and now Iraq, all wound down after an escalation.

I hate war. I wish all our people could come home from all over the world. I'm a realist. I know this isn't going to happen. I'm a realist, and I am grateful for any small improvement. Sending the vast majority of our troops home from Iraq is a vast improvement. Planning the end of military action in Afghanistan is a vast improvement as well.

[JuniperLea]

2. That's my view...

Only Generals who were working for Bush, or are on the ground now are saying it helped... and we all know what happens when they don't remain lock-step with the CIC.

[gophates]

4. Helped McCain lose.

That's gotta count for something.

[bemildred]

5. Basically, it was a strategy to allow the claim that the Pentagon is not impotent to do anything

in these situations, even though history shows abundantly that it is exactly that. And the payoff end of that strategy is being implemented now:

Iraq after U.S. combat forces withdraw

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mckeon-iraq-20100831,0,2197284.story

[gratuitous]

9. It kicked the can down the road until Bush could make his getaway

Iraq was and is in the shitter, and it was becoming conventional wisdom that Iraq had been a mistake. Then, hey presto! here's The Surge™, and now the Insiders had something else to talk about. Now we had to give The Surge™ time to work, otherwise the terrorists would win, we wouldn't love us no troops no more, and the baby Jesus would start crying and never shut up. So, The Surge™ started, and a couple of Friedman Units later, the Bush presidency was thankfully, finally, over. Georgie fled town like he's done all his life, and he left a buttload of messes for the next guy to clean up.

That's what The Surge™ accomplished.

[Scuba]

10. It turned a bunch of war-mongers into multi-billionaires.

[MichiganVote]

11. I will say it did take out the son's of SH. They were some bad, bad characters.

[wmbrew0206]

16. FYI, they were long dead before the Surge started. I think those two were kiled in '04 or '05.

[Barack2theFuture]

12. It accomplished a horrifically murderous strategy in Afghanistan

pretty much.

[TheKentuckian]

13. nothing beneficial whatsoever, a total failure

[HopeHoops]

14. You mean other than death, destruction, and general bodily mutilation?

Um...:shrug:

[wmbrew0206]

15. I would disagree, the Surge did just want it was designed to do.

FYI, I was in Iraq in '07 and in Al Anbar, so I was there to see what happened.

The Surge did not work by itself. The Surge and the Awakening provided a synergy that allowed the US and Iraqis to separate and turn indigenous insurgent Iraqi groups against AQI, and provide enough ass to protect the local populations centers from AQI attacks. The extra troops allowed the US and Iraqis to move out of population centers, once they had been cleared, and take away sanctuaries outside the cities that AQI had used to plan and equip attacks. Once the attacks on populations centers dried up, it allowed US and Iraqi forces to start making improvement in the cities and making the streets safe for commerce.

It gave Iraqis belief in their Army and Police. It also allowed the local government to start functioning and brought the Sunnis into the fold and believe that they needed to participate in elections and the government.

The Surge was meant to end the violence long enough for the political process to move forward and allow the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Government agencies to be able to function with less dependence on US help. It did that.

The fact that we watched US troops roll across the Iraq border into Kuwait peacefully rather than watching overloaded helos taking off from a US Embassy amid chaos with people trying to jump on, is due to the Surge. While Iraq is not totally at peace and there is still a lot of political issues, it is no where near as bad as it was in '05 or '06 and it seems like a lot of people here are forgetting just how bad it was back then.

[Winterblues]

17. We watched American soldiers leave Vietnam in an orderly manner

as well. It was much later (almost a year) that the third largest army in the world at that time rolled through Vietnam and created panic among the Vietnamese people. There Never will be any such thing in Iraq because we were never fighting any real army or military. We were killing civilians, lots and lots of civilians. Are you suggesting that Iraq now has a functioning government? That Democracy has suddenly broken out in Iraq and they will now be our official partner in that area? IMO anyone that believes that is quite naive.

[wmbrew0206]

18. If we had not implemented the Surge and tried to withdraw forces out of Iraq in '06

those scenes from Vietnam is what Baghdad would have looked like. With a lot of ordinary Iraqis trying to get out of the country to avoid the violence that would be about to ensue.

I have not said that Iraq has a functioning government, but it is a hell of a lot closer to one than where it was in '06, as is the rest of the country.

Will Iraq be our partner in the future moving forward? That is more up in the air. There are a lot of very close bonds between the US and members of the Iraqi military, government, and tribal leaders. It remains to be seen if those bonds are strong enough for the US to be able to partner with the US on future diplomatic initiatives in the future.

[JuniperLea]

20. Thank you for your service, wmbrew0206

And thanks for your explanation here. I saw the faces of troops peacefully moving out... and I saw the smiles. They all looked happy, and relieved. That made me happy, and relieved as well. I hope the same happens in Afghanistan. I remember how the troops felt abandoned in Afghanistan... funny how so few remember this now, even though DU was outraged at their lonely and dangerous fate at the time.