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Subject: Why the Surge Worked
SYSOP    1/2/2008 5:06:55 AM
 
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Crass Spektakel    Forced Peace   1/2/2008 8:24:29 PM
Like my grandpa said, you can't force people to live peacefully and prosperious by pointing guns at them. But you can protect those who want and isolate those who don't. With other words, let everyone live their personal hell inside a power  vacuum until they change their minds. Then protect them.
 
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Jeff_F_F    well put   1/3/2008 12:58:10 AM
Worked for Europe and for the Warsaw Pact...
 
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Nomad32       1/3/2008 10:04:52 PM
'till '89 when they all decided that they wanted to join NATO. The erstwhile sponsor of the WARPAC doesn't win too many popularity contests since. Also the EU is a lot more pricl=kly toward Russia now - BECAUSE of the influx of ex-warpac countries.
 
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jak267       1/5/2008 9:46:58 PM
How in any god's name can you say that allowing terrorists who murdered tens of thousands of Iraqis and 3,000 American soldiers to become "legitimate" armed units and government factions is any kind of victory? All they've done is learned how to use the Americans against the Iran-controlled Shia government.

The lesson for every potential terrorist organization in the world is that even if they can't defeat the US military, they can force the US government to accommodate them.

And when they get nuclear or biological weapons - and a Democrat is in power - they will only get bolder.
 
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Mike From Brielle    jak267    1/7/2008 3:36:04 PM
 

Jak I'm curious when the vast majority of the Taliban changed sides in Afghanistan after the promise of CIA money and having witnessed the effectiveness of JDAMS did you also object?

 

What I object to is what I feel is the mis-characterization of the prime cause for the effectiveness of the SURGE.  The Surge succeeded because the change in Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTP), IMHO.  Not merely the increase in the amount of troops available. 

 

I am all for keeping a boat secured properly and in equilateral balance as it goes up-stream and not making waves but along with a good part of the Vietnam War and the early parts of the Iraq war the correct TTP?s were not utilized and this has shown to be a systemic problem for both democratic and republican administrations.

 

Part of the problem may be the Gerrymandering of Military Operational authority away from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Perhaps when someone leaves the Joint Staff he (or she I guess for some future time) should receive a type of tenure or something and have some kind of connection to the GAO and existing Joint Staff with proper staffing available. 

 

As it stands now an officer has no option when dealing with JUSTIFIED (I am in no way shape or form proposing a change in the civilian/ military relationship in this country just the over sight process) civilian authority than to either go along with what he may feel are bad TTP?s or commit professional suicide.    

 
On the other hand this has the potential to make Military operations a political football which they should not!  I am not proposeing a solution just stateing there is a problem. 
 
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clevermonkey    LA LA LA   1/8/2008 12:32:50 AM
What a joke.  To take a couple examples:
>>The majority of the Iraqi military is under the control of Iraqi elected leadership and is nearly fully manned and equipped.

Iraq is also a democratic nation.  The local citizens turned out in 2005 to elect their government with 80 percent voter turnout.  This makes the government in Baghdad more accountable.  The citizens expected and will continue to expect results from their leaders.<<

This is nothing but another Strategypage fairy tale.  There is no Iraqi government, and there is no Iraqi military, in the sense implied of being unified, competent, self-supporting, nationally recognized and accepted.  Politically the surge has been an abject failure, and Iraq is no closer to resolving fundamental issue than when it started.  All we've seen are short term tactical moves done in the interests of each of the factions involved.  The Sunni insurgency has been granted de facto amnesty, so long as they attack AQI (who have made themselves unwelcome anyway) we arm them for the coming showdown with the "elected government" (in an election Sunnis boycotted) who would destroy them if they could.  Everyone else knows this is our last gasp and is biding their time.  Britain, the only credible ally we ever had, has thrown in the towel, and southern Iraq is abandoned, fortunately too busy with internal Shiite conflict to bother with us.  But everyone knows the surge can't and won't be repeated, that its not just liberals or the American people that want the US out of there, but the military itself that has had enough and is in a hurry to reduce our exposure and start rebuilding for the next conflict, surely not too far off.  Sadr and SCIRI and Iran and the Kurds and everyone else can afford to wait us out: they live there!  As the US tide ebbs and flows back out, we go from being the dominant player to another faction trying to influence events to bystanders trying to get home with a minimum of additional casualties.  With Neocon ticket punchers long gone and the military on the way out, we'll see plenty more violence, but out of it finally will come an actual Iraqi solution, even if the solution is no more Iraq.  Sorry Strategypage, but judged by any standard of US interests, not just the fevered imperial delusions of the Neocons, this one goes decisively in the Lose column. 
 
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Mike From Brielle    Clever Monkey   1/8/2008 3:08:55 PM
 

You should write it all in bold; most of the people your counting on to instigate your coming Iraqi Arab Armageddon are dead or in prison, maybe in bold they can get the message.
 
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Jeff_F_F       1/8/2008 9:27:12 PM
Funny, I don't every remember any of the opponent's of the surge saying, "well of course the surge will dramatically reduce violence within a year, but it isn't going to solve the political problems inherent in the Iraqi state."
 
Maybe I'm wrong. If I am, show me somewhere that any of the Democrat Presidential candidates saying something equivalent to that before the surge began. All I remember hearing was them were just saying "It will fail!"
 
Based on the original claims they were idiot surrender monkeys, as are you.
 
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stephen       1/9/2008 4:52:21 PM
Well the surge wasnt doing so well until the Sadr truce came into effect. In fact violence increased initially did it not?
 
Anyway the surge cannot work because the fundamentals for success have not been established as another writer has just mentioned. Iraq is surrounded by armed agendas ready to cause trouble the moment the coalition (lets face it US) back is turned.
 
Whatever the beliefs people may have about the sanity or otherwise of the surge tactic I think something had to be tried. The the British strategy of softly softly was comprehensively mauled leaving them guarding an airport while gangs fight it out for Basra.
 
Its a great pity so many lives have been lost to remove one murderous leader. The only consolation will be if it casts the warmongering hawks to oblivion.
 
 
 
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Mike From Brielle    Stephen   1/9/2008 6:11:51 PM
Sadr had to call a truce or else his militia would have completly collapsed, he may have done his movement great harm by not doing something sooner.
 
Things are happening at the grass roots level (all politics is local) that will dictate the necessary changes take place and in many cases these changes are already taking place but not in a formal sense.
 
In the long run the political changes that will take place will have firm foundation on which to rest and in turn help ward off neighborhood interlopers.
 
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WarNerd       1/10/2008 5:49:57 AM
Is the surge working?  Good question.
 
We have achieved temporary success by basically breaking up Iraq into innumerable tiny neighborhoods and re-establishing a tribal militia in each.  What we need for final success is to develop a national police force in Iraq that is trusted enough by everyone to replace the militias.
 
That will take at least a generation to accomplish.  (Just look at relations between black neighborhoods and the police in the US.)
 
As things stand, US forces success against Al-Qaeda has left the Sunni's undefended against the Shia, forcing them to allie with the US for protection.  The price of this protection was information that allowed the US to roll-up the remaining Al-Qaeda operations.  In return, this freed up US manpower to tackle the next major source of violence, the Shia militias.
 
Al-Sadr (or his Iranian handlers) understood that his forces were about to face a military tidal wave and quickly cut a deal to save what he could of his power base.  Several other Shia groups, including some allied to Al-Sadr, however did not and are being gradually destroyed.  Sadr is hoping to take control of the territories of the groups that the US destroys, so he will continue to make nice noises.
 
As I see it, there key issue in the fight against the militias will be the next election.  If the allies can prevent the militias from using violence to intimidate the voters, then we are winning.  If not, then we are at best not losing.
 
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JHenry-OSIAN       1/22/2008 7:00:29 PM
My my... If cynicism could kill...
 
The al-Sadr truce in August occurred as activity levels were starting to drop.  So, the other comment was right on. 
 
I really find it comical how some folks have such ideas as to what is really going on.  The tribes were not bribed.  The Sunnis had 80% voter turnout and kept al Qaeda at bay during the elections.  The British are pulling out because they finished the job and the recent shoot out with Jund as-Samay proves it.  Al Qaeda in Iraq has been reduced by 75% in 2007.  As for Iraqi unity, pick up a history book on Bakr's Iraq.  The one that was nearly invincible on the battlefield.  Mischaracterizations, cynicism, and ignorance have never produced results in any past military conflicts.
 
fyi, to insult someone's honor in Iraq is a capital offense. 
 
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stephen    still a mess   1/25/2008 9:12:15 AM


"The al-Sadr truce in August occurred as activity levels were starting to drop.  So, the other comment was right on.  "
 
The point is having a peace deal backed up by the threat of eradication worked. I commend the US for having the backbone and resources to perform such feats. However will this be a lull or a permanent effect?
 
"The British are pulling out because they finished the job and the recent shoot out with Jund as-Samay proves it."
 
Emmm, not what I hear from British serving there. Training etc may be going ok and their firepower is sufficient to get them out of ambushes. Unfortunately they cannot apply sufficient political or military force to tame unruly elements within Basra either due to a lack of political will or troop numbers of most probably both.  They have a small force with a large area to cover and by all accounts Basra is now just run by gangs. I believe certain US commentators political and military have voiced concerns over the size of the British contingent versus the task in front of them.
 
"Al Qaeda in Iraq has been reduced by 75% in 2007. "
 
Didn't realise they were so largely composed of suicide bombers :-) As I understand things there is not an AQ army sitting there holding a line so it must be very difficult to quantify, and in any case 'AQ' is just a term for a broad range of agendas which overlap in their hate for the 'west.'
 
"Mischaracterizations, cynicism, and ignorance have never produced results in any past military conflicts."
 
You mean like fake dossiers on WMD, not understanding the potential for a civil war in Iraq? Yes I agree on that :-) Now we have the potential for a nuclear armed Iran,  many thousands of dead and injured and the US economy lumbered with huge military expenditure while there are so many impoverished people in its own backyard! What a waste.
 
Stephen

 



 
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Speedy    Measuring "worked"   7/23/2008 12:58:53 AM
Strategy could, on the other hand, be to restore the diversity and tolerance and civility levels that pertained when we invaded with "the army we had".  If our occupation and our force surge have only reestablished that,  then judges are now ordering squatters to hand the house keys back to the family that was driven out along with a check for years of overdue rent and things are getting back to the way we found them when our speedy little force first arrived.
 
Some leaders repeat and repeat that "the surge worked".
 
Those who keep refusing to admit it should go mingle, rub shoulders with the masses who have come back from hiding in Jordan to pick up where they left off back in their old neighborhoods. Spend one night at each of ten families in ten of the old neighborhoods. Then they might come back stateside and tell me why, in fact, that surge has "worked".
 
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