Great Post and Videos From Blackfive - The Surge Worked
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1 comment:
The first video claims the Surge "worked" with no analysis of why it has (if it has) and what the metric of success is. For a valid analysis, perhaps there should be some recognition that Sunni tribal factions in Anbar Province saw outside elements calling themselves al-Qaeda/Iraq as ememies. U.S. forces recognized this opening and helped it along a great deal with monetary support. Perhaps, too, there should be some analysis of the likelihood of those same Sunni tribal factions turning against the U.S. after the small, outside al-Qaeda/Iraq is run out.
A question I have not seen addressed: How much of the decrease in deaths in Baghdad is due to Shia-Sunni ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods? It was just a matter of time, it seems to me, that there would finally be a shakeout of the two sides, wherein each neighborhood would be factionally cleaned out to be made up of only one of the two religious factions. Is this another reason the Surge "worked"?
The shallow headline--"Hey Obama...--Deal With It"--does not recognize that the next President must deal with an exhausted U.S. military that is hampered with thousands of soldiers suffering PTSD, the hardships of third tours, a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan that is winning their war there, U.S. coffers depleted by a $3 trillion war (according to Joseph Stiglitz), a crippled U.S. economy, prospects of another long war in Afghanistan and further years in Iraq.
It is great there are some signs of success in Iraq, but the overall news has been so bleak for so long, and the lack of planning for the aftermath of the initial invasion of Iraq so incompetent, and the benefit the U.S. handed to Iran as result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq so unhelpful, that we need very clear thinking on the next moves.
Cynicism does not help. And, we should be glad that apparently Obama does not believe in the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes. That canard got us into much of the mess we are now in.
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