The Surge Dirge
Looks like we might not have to wait until September for an assessment of how the surge is doing. Nearly half a Friedman into brilliant and glorious plan to secure Baghdad and give everyone a pony we find that we will probably be seeing a lowering of expectations again.
War proponents will probably try to spin this as good news, perhaps by suggesting that the Iraqi Army is taking up the operational slack in the other neighborhoods. Of course we all know who really controls them: militias on both sides of the Sunni/Shia divide.
This news isn't really that surprising to anyone who knows anything about counterinsurgency. It's been said since the surge plan was announced that to achieve the goals set forth by the Bushies, a lot more than just 30,000 troops would be needed. General Petraeus practically wrote the book on the subject (newest edition anyway) and it's sad that he would go against everything he knows just to protect President Bush's ego.
Even worse: the only thing that appears to be surging is the undertaker's business.
Meme more.
(Filed at State of the Day)
Three months after the start of the Baghdad security plan that has added thousands of American and Iraqi troops to the capital, they control fewer than one-third of the city’s neighborhoods, far short of the initial goal for the operation, according to some commanders and an internal military assessment.
The American assessment, completed in late May, found that American and Iraqi forces were able to “to protect the population” and “maintain physical influence over” only 146 of the 457 Baghdad neighborhoods.
War proponents will probably try to spin this as good news, perhaps by suggesting that the Iraqi Army is taking up the operational slack in the other neighborhoods. Of course we all know who really controls them: militias on both sides of the Sunni/Shia divide.
This news isn't really that surprising to anyone who knows anything about counterinsurgency. It's been said since the surge plan was announced that to achieve the goals set forth by the Bushies, a lot more than just 30,000 troops would be needed. General Petraeus practically wrote the book on the subject (newest edition anyway) and it's sad that he would go against everything he knows just to protect President Bush's ego.
Even worse: the only thing that appears to be surging is the undertaker's business.
Meme more.
(Filed at State of the Day)
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