Petraeus successfully squeezes balloon!
By Thoreau
This morning’s Washington Post describes the outcome of the surge.
BAGHDAD, April 21 — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said the ongoing increase of nearly 30,000 U.S. troops in the country has achieved “modest progress” but has also met with setbacks such as a rise in devastating suicide bombings and other problems that leave uncertain whether his counterinsurgency strategy will ultimately succeed.
Assessing the first two months of the U.S. and Iraqi plan to pacify the capital, senior American commanders — including Petraeus; Adm. William J. Fallon, head of U.S. forces in the Middle East; Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of military operations in Iraq; and top regional commanders — see mixed results. They said that while an increase in U.S. and Iraqi troops has improved security in Baghdad and Anbar province, attacks have risen sharply elsewhere. Critical now, they said in interviews this week, is for Iraqi leaders to forge the political compromises needed for long-term stability.
Utterly predictable: The surge has directed the violence elsewhere.
Also, this tidbit pisses me off:
It is virtually impossible to eliminate the suicide bombings, the commanders acknowledged. “I don’t think you’re ever going to get rid of all the car bombs,” Petraeus said. “Iraq is going to have to learn — as did, say, Northern Ireland — to live with some degree of sensational attacks.”
The American people would go batshit insane and start another disastrous war if we faced even 5% of the violence that Iraq faces. While estimates of civilian casualties in Iraq vary greatly, a very conservative (very very conservative) lowball estimate would be 20 per day. That translates into more than twice the 9/11 death toll every year. At a bare minimum! If we faced that sort of carnage from suicide bombings we’d be invading Venezuela or some other oil-rich country with no ties to the attacks. No, scratch that. If we faced that sort of carnage we’d be invading at least four oil-rich countries with no ties to the attacks. And yet US commanders dare to say that the Iraqis should learn to deal with it? Don’t they realize that the reason they’re knee-deep in blood is that a population will go completely frickin insane when terrorists attack?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of not going batshit insane in response to violence. Insanity just keeps it going, and makes an awful situation even worse. I just think it’s ironic that we, the country that invaded a country with no ties to 9/11 just because we were pissed off over 9/11, have the gall to tell a country that we helped turn from really bad to even worse “Oh, you guys just have to learn to deal with it.”
If we can’t make it better than we should just get the hell out. Right now.
Comment by Karen —
April 22, 2007 @ 8:15 am
I have nothing of significance to say on this subject. My response to Iraq news anymore is to go bake something or plant flowers, in the vain hope that by creating some small nice thing, I’m canceling .0000000001% of the bad karma Bush has inflicted on the world.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 22, 2007 @ 8:19 am
If only every Texan were like you, Karen…
Comment by KCinDC —
April 22, 2007 @ 8:32 am
So Petraeus wants Iraqis to view terrorism as a nuisance? Except that unlike Kerry he doesn’t see a need to actually reduce the terrorism before it can be viewed that way.
Comment by josephdietrich —
April 22, 2007 @ 9:39 am
See, if he can get the Iraqis to look at terrorism as a nuisance, he can also get them to see occupation as one as well. Because, you know, it’s virtually impossible to eliminate security contractor “accidental” shootings, or those occasional kick-in-the-door, we’re-looking-for-terrorists, house-to-house searches.
The Iraqis are just going to have to live with it.
Comment by Nell —
April 22, 2007 @ 10:27 am
Because, you know, it’s virtually impossible to eliminate security contractor “accidental†shootings, or those occasional kick-in-the-door, we’re-looking-for-terrorists, house-to-house searches.
Particularly so when the people doing them have the mindset that
Comment by Glaivester —
April 22, 2007 @ 2:36 pm
While estimates of civilian casualties in Iraq vary greatly, a very conservative (very very conservative) lowball estimate would be 20 per day. That translates into more than twice the 9/11 death toll every year. At a bare minimum!
And if you adjust for population, it’s more like twenty times.
Comment by Dave W. —
April 22, 2007 @ 5:30 pm
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of not going batshit insane in response to violence. Insanity just keeps it going, and makes an awful situation even worse. I just think it’s ironic that we, the country that invaded a country with no ties to 9/11 just because we were pissed off over 9/11, have the gall to tell a country that we helped turn from really bad to even worse “Oh, you guys just have to learn to deal with it.â€
Are you saying that our cause in Iraq is not just?
That would be quite a change in position for you, T. Inquiring minds, etc., etc.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 22, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
Dave, if you’d like to continue to draw faulty conclusions about my opinions based on one out-of-context remark in a blog comment thread two years ago, feel free to find some forum where people actually care.
Comment by BruceR —
April 22, 2007 @ 10:51 pm
I don’t know of any even “very very conservative” estimate of Iraqi fatalities as low as the 7,200/a range. Iraqis dream of your “2 9/11s a year” existence, Thoreau… in reality it’s much worse.
Comment by Karl —
April 22, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
Thoreau,
One problem with getting out immediately is that IMHO the death rate would rise considerably above 20/day as Iraq collapses into a full scale civil war or worse: Turkey could invade to suppress the Kurds or Iran could move to “protect” their fellow Shiites (and their oilfields
.
My understanding of Iraq is that our intervention has been a sucess in Kurdistan but is currently a failure elsewhere. Something is wrong when the Assyrian Christians in Iraq are fleeing to Alawite Syria for protection.
Bush or his sucessor needs/will need to come up with a different plan if the situation doesn’t change soon. Perhaps that will be a de facto rather than de jure partioning of Iraq to forestall a Turkish invasion and delay Iranian annexation.
Perhaps Bush is just playing for time till he or Israel have to destructively respond to Iran getting nukes or less likely an Iranian regime change for the better in which case the situation will change radically.
Bush & company IMHO fouled up the war in Iraq and Afganistan by trying to do it PC and on the cheap with too few soldiers but NOT all the blame belongs to Bush which is shown the situation in Kurdistan.
If, as I suspect, non Kurdish Sunni and Shiite Iraqis want more to kill each other and coalition forces rather than go “bat shit” on the Al Queda agitators and rebuild, then they too are responsible for the mess.
If you believe or know my understanding of the sitution is flawed, say on so I may possibly learn.
BTW the Kurds can be nasty folk too (Armenian Holocaust) and sometimes have nasty habits like other Muslims (FGM, honor killing etc.) but currently their society seem to be functioning reasonably well and they are somewhat appreciative of America helping them achieve this unlike much of the rest of Iraq. I don’t want them overwhelmed by a Turkey that appears to be turning against the West (ex. “Valley of the Wolves”, Metal Storm” etc.) or by the vile mullahs of Iran.
Thoreau,
One problem with getting out immediately is that IMHO the death rate would rise considerably above 20/day as Iraq collapses into a full scale civil war or worse: Turkey could invade to suppress the Kurds or Iran could move to “protect” their fellow Shiites (and their oilfields
.
My understanding of Iraq is that our intervention has been a sucess in Kurdistan but is currently a failure elsewhere. Something is wrong when the Assyrian Christians in Iraq are fleeing to Alawite Syria for protection.
Bush or his sucessor needs/will need to come up with a different plan if the situation doesn’t change soon. Perhaps that will be a de facto rather than de jure partioning of Iraq to forestall a Turkish invasion and delay Iranian annexation.
Perhaps Bush is just playing for time till he or Israel have to destructively respond to Iran getting nukes or less likely an Iranian regime change for the better in which case the situation will change radically.
Bush & company IMHO fouled up the war in Iraq and Afganistan by trying to do it PC and on the cheap with too few soldiers but NOT all the blame belongs to Bush which is shown the situation in Kurdistan.
If, as I suspect, non Kurdish Sunni and Shiite Iraqis want more to kill each other and coalition forces rather than go “bat shit” on the Al Queda agitators and rebuild, then they too are responsible for the mess.
If you believe or know my understanding of the sitution is flawed, say on so I may possibly learn.
BTW the Kurds can be nasty folk too (Armenian Holocaust) and sometimes have nasty habits like other Muslims (FGM, honor killing etc.) but currently their society seem to be functioning reasonably well and they are somewhat appreciative of America helping them achieve this unlike much of the rest of Iraq. I don’t want them overwhelmed by a Turkey that appears to be turning against the West (ex. “Valley of the Wolves”, Metal Storm” etc.) or by the vile mullahs of Iran.
Comment by Karl —
April 22, 2007 @ 11:07 pm
Sorry about the 2 in one post. :-[
Comment by Tom Scudder —
April 23, 2007 @ 1:40 am
Something is wrong when the Assyrian Christians in Iraq are fleeing to Alawite Syria for protection.
Not really. (I mean, yes, something is wrong if people who stuck around in Saddam-era Iraq are now fleeing.) Syria’s been pretty good about not treating their religious minorities any worse than any other citizens.
Comment by Dave W. —
April 23, 2007 @ 3:19 am
Dave, if you’d like to continue to draw faulty conclusions about my opinions based on one out-of-context remark in a blog comment thread two years ago, feel free to find some forum where people actually care.
I honestly can’t figure out whether you think the Iraq War is a just war or an unjust war.
If you think it is an unjust war, then why not just say that?
Some of your readers may like it when you ride the fence, but others want clarity.
Just war or unjust war?
Comment by Dave W. —
April 23, 2007 @ 5:19 am
Here I am putting T. on the spot about The Iraq War, but I haven’t said how I feel about it. Hopefully I can make my feelings clear with just a few bullet points.
1. The Iraq War, by which I mean the foreign invasion and occupation, is an unjust war. There is nothing wrong with admitting that.
2. As far as current military strategy, now that the coalition is in the quagmire, the highest priority should be to seal the borders from foreign weapons shipments. If weapons are coming in, and exacerbating the civil war in Iraq, then I do not blame the Sultan of Syria or the Potentate of Persia. Rather, the army occupying Iraq needs to seal the borders so far as weapons shipments go. If the coalition continues doing only one thing in Iraq, that is what it should be.
3. Permanent US military bases in Iraq should be dismantled. They send a very, very bad message as far as what the Iraq War is all about.
4. Stop using coalition resources (both contractor based and regular military) to protect Iraq’s oil infrastructure. Military resources in Iraq are apparently scarce. There is, therefore, a choice to be made between protecting the oil and protecting the people. This choice should always be made in favor of protecting the people. To do anything else is to trade off blood for oil. The Iraq War should not be about blood for oil.
5. Make sure that Coalition military forces are suffering as many casualties, on a per capita basis, as Iraqi civilians. The soldiers are supposed to be protecting the civilians. that is their job, that is what they volunteered for (at least the US forces are volunteer based). If the enemy is attacking civilians in favor of our soldiers, then it means the soldiers are not out there enough to deflect, absorb and otherwise defend against those attacks. They need to make sure that to the extent there is a trade-off to be made between an innocent Iraqi civilian dying, or a US military man or woman dying, that it is the soldier who takes it for the civilian. That is the job of an occupying military. Protection of the innocent people.
6. Stop the stop loss. They should offer coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan a deal: get out of the military immediately (with hon. discharge) in exchange for giving up lifetime medical, pension, pay and any other economic benefits. Now supposedly the soldiers want to be there, and none would take this deal. That is fine, if it works out that way. However, if there are soldiers who don’t want to be there, then it is in everyone’s best interest to get those ones out post haste. By having them forego economic benefits in exchange for early honorable discharge, the war also becomes a less expensive proposition for the taxpayers at home. Now I don’t know what percentage of the military would cut and run, given the chance, but I think we owe it to these brave women and men in the killing zone to give them that choice.
Comment by ajay —
April 23, 2007 @ 6:36 am
12: yes. Syria isn’t really “Alawite”. It’s ruled by Alawites, but the biggest religious group in Syria is the Sunni; basically the Assads have followed a strategy of getting all the minorities on their side, for fear of what would happen if the Sunni came into power. The main worry for the Syrian regime is Sunni militancy; see Hama.
Comment by M —
April 23, 2007 @ 7:14 am
One Message. Many Voices. Home. Now.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 23, 2007 @ 7:50 am
Karl-
What do you mean by this?
Bush & company IMHO fouled up the war in Iraq and Afganistan by trying to do it PC and on the cheap with too few soldiers
I agree that there were too few soldiers initially. (And I do oppose the surge, but on the grounds that not even all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will be enough to fix something that’s too badly broken.)
But what do you mean by “PC”? Have we not killed enough Iraqi civilians?
Dave, I was against the war from the start. You took one blog comment from more than 2 years ago out of context and you won’t let go of it. Get over it.
Comment by Dave W. —
April 23, 2007 @ 9:30 am
Get over it.
You know, you are right. It is time to move on from that comment. Your more recent commentary against the Iraq War has been unmistakeable and eloquent. I shouldn’t be trying to micromanage your opposition. To this day I can’t figure out why everybody didn’t get fed up to the point of leaving the US like I did. The injustice of it just ate me up. Not just the stupidity of the war, but the injustice. Still does, sometimes, obviously. But that isn’t your problem, and now it is really ancient history — lots of Americans speak out against the war strongly and clearly these days.
Besides, I feel a bit better now that I got to put my bullet points up in this thread. The more we face the United States’ hypocrisy about Iraq, hopefully the sooner we can be out of there.
Comment by Matt Weiner —
April 23, 2007 @ 2:02 pm
My understanding of Iraq is that our intervention has been a sucess in Kurdistan but is currently a failure elsewhere.
My understanding is that Kurdistan was already in decent shape before the war; it wasn’t under Saddam’s effective control.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 23, 2007 @ 6:12 pm
I shouldn’t be trying to micromanage your opposition.
You know, Dave, you really shouldn’t be trying to micromanage anybody’s positions on anything. Threads that veer off-topic are one thing, but it’s not cool to use this forum to try to “teach” me or whatever it is that you think you’re doing. Try to show a little bit of courtesy here, and you might just get the same.
Comment by Dave W. —
April 23, 2007 @ 6:53 pm
You know, Dave, you really shouldn’t be trying to micromanage anybody’s positions on anything. Threads that veer off-topic are one thing, but it’s not cool to use this forum to try to “teach†me or whatever it is that you think you’re doing. Try to show a little bit of courtesy here, and you might just get the same.
Sounds good. Let me know if you think I am micromanaging here, rather than merely engaging in fair adversarial dialogue.
You were right to call me on this thread because I was out of bounds on this one. Your post is a good one, and there was no need for me to get divisive here.
I should have listened to Stevo Darkly when he explained to me back in February that this particular line of criticism is out of line. He did a really good explanation and I just didn’t listen.
Keep up the good posts on The Iraq War. they are enlightening and heartening. The war has hurt me deeply, and in a personal way. I really felt like I lost my country, and that my whole political life as a US citizen had been a big lie. But it really is time to let go of that and become human again — or at least limit my rhetorically lashing out on Iraq to people who are objectively pro-war.