The Surge of Success! Or Yet Another Carefully Crafted Iraq Lie
Posted on
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
We've been told for over a year now that the surge of troops would be a rousing success. That in a year's time, the extra bodes thrown at the problem of Iraq would cut down on the violence, giving the Iraqi government time to make political headway on the most pressing issues the country faces. Those issues include things like regular electricity, potable running water and really, any of the things you expect a government to be able to provide. Thankfully, the violence in Iraq HAS gone down. Unfortunately, the Iraqi government's various ethnic and sectarian factions have done absolutely nothing in the way of providing anything close to a working government. Yet, despite that lack of important political progress, advocates for the surge have all been gleeful because the violence is down. The surge has worked! Success. The only problem with that success is that it's a carefully constructed lie.
Yes, it is true that the violence has gone down in Iraq. That's something I should be ecstatic about, but I can't help but feel sickened by the flim-flam with which such a positive result was achieved. In order to more effectively fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group that did not exist prior to our invasion, by the way, the military began supplying Sunni insurgents with weapons and cash. That's right, those same Sunni insurgents who used to blow up American convoys with IED's are now aiding the American occupation in rooting out Al-Qaeda. This tactic is incredibly brilliant, in that the best way to actually defeat a guerrilla insurgency is to involve them in the positive future of their country. Defeating a bunch of foreign fighters intent on sowing sectarian discord in Iraq is most certainly something that all Iraqis, Sunni or Shia should be cheering.
But from the American perspective, it should be seen with the proper context. First, the Sunni insurgents are terrorists, at least in the eyes of the administration. So that administration, by allowing payments to the Sunni insurgents have now "negotiated with terrorists," which is something they claimed they would not do. This shows how hypocritical the administration is, but at least they finally acknowledged that just being bull-headed "kill 'em all" psychopaths was not a tenable long-term solution. This deal with the Sunnis also has nothing whatsoever to do with the tactic of putting more troops in country. Whether you had 100,000 or 100 troops in Iraq, this tactic would have likely born fruit. The Sunni insurgency's main beef has always been that America is an occupying force. If they don't want Americans occupying their country, they won't want Saudi or Jordanian or Lebanese terrorists doing the same thing, especially when those terrorists start bombing centuries-old mosques. Their other aim has been to ensure that the newly-empowered Shia majority, with the aid of the U.S. military, is attempting to oppress them in the same way their minority oppressed the Shia under Saddam Hussein's reign. Attempts at communication, even funding the Sunni militias, make them feel a part of the process instead of an oppressed minority.
But the real kicker to the entire "surge is succeeding" lie is that it's an accurate lie. The violence has gone down, but it isn't just because we tossed 20,000 more troops into the mix. The Sunni insurgency's main weapon has been the IED, the improvised explosive device, otherwise known in not-doublespeak as the roadside bomb. Now that the Sunni insurgency isn't targeting Americans and Shia anymore, focusing instead on Al-Qaeda in Iraq, those IED's aren't being seen as much. Isn't that a coincidence? No, but you won't hear anything about that particular connection from the proponents of the surge. All you will hear is "THE SURGE HAS WORKED!!!!" Never mind that it was a political solution and not a military one that caused much of the drop in violence. It's all about the military.
Don't believe it. The military has done an impossible job as best they can, but Iraq is the kind of problem that can never be solved with purely military solutions. Insurgencies do not get defeated by anything less than sustained genocidal insanity, something I hope our government doesn't consider a viable final solution. The violence has dropped, because we bought off some of the insurgents. Saying it as anything else is a flim-flam job meant to win elections.
Yes, it is true that the violence has gone down in Iraq. That's something I should be ecstatic about, but I can't help but feel sickened by the flim-flam with which such a positive result was achieved. In order to more effectively fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group that did not exist prior to our invasion, by the way, the military began supplying Sunni insurgents with weapons and cash. That's right, those same Sunni insurgents who used to blow up American convoys with IED's are now aiding the American occupation in rooting out Al-Qaeda. This tactic is incredibly brilliant, in that the best way to actually defeat a guerrilla insurgency is to involve them in the positive future of their country. Defeating a bunch of foreign fighters intent on sowing sectarian discord in Iraq is most certainly something that all Iraqis, Sunni or Shia should be cheering.
But from the American perspective, it should be seen with the proper context. First, the Sunni insurgents are terrorists, at least in the eyes of the administration. So that administration, by allowing payments to the Sunni insurgents have now "negotiated with terrorists," which is something they claimed they would not do. This shows how hypocritical the administration is, but at least they finally acknowledged that just being bull-headed "kill 'em all" psychopaths was not a tenable long-term solution. This deal with the Sunnis also has nothing whatsoever to do with the tactic of putting more troops in country. Whether you had 100,000 or 100 troops in Iraq, this tactic would have likely born fruit. The Sunni insurgency's main beef has always been that America is an occupying force. If they don't want Americans occupying their country, they won't want Saudi or Jordanian or Lebanese terrorists doing the same thing, especially when those terrorists start bombing centuries-old mosques. Their other aim has been to ensure that the newly-empowered Shia majority, with the aid of the U.S. military, is attempting to oppress them in the same way their minority oppressed the Shia under Saddam Hussein's reign. Attempts at communication, even funding the Sunni militias, make them feel a part of the process instead of an oppressed minority.
But the real kicker to the entire "surge is succeeding" lie is that it's an accurate lie. The violence has gone down, but it isn't just because we tossed 20,000 more troops into the mix. The Sunni insurgency's main weapon has been the IED, the improvised explosive device, otherwise known in not-doublespeak as the roadside bomb. Now that the Sunni insurgency isn't targeting Americans and Shia anymore, focusing instead on Al-Qaeda in Iraq, those IED's aren't being seen as much. Isn't that a coincidence? No, but you won't hear anything about that particular connection from the proponents of the surge. All you will hear is "THE SURGE HAS WORKED!!!!" Never mind that it was a political solution and not a military one that caused much of the drop in violence. It's all about the military.
Don't believe it. The military has done an impossible job as best they can, but Iraq is the kind of problem that can never be solved with purely military solutions. Insurgencies do not get defeated by anything less than sustained genocidal insanity, something I hope our government doesn't consider a viable final solution. The violence has dropped, because we bought off some of the insurgents. Saying it as anything else is a flim-flam job meant to win elections.
Labels: Bush Administration, Dick Cheney, Fascism, Government Corruption, Iraq, Politics, Presidential Campaign 2008
posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 3:24 PM
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