Unhealthy Surge

Nominating myself for 'understatement of the year' with that one...Patrick Colburn of The Independent gives us a special report on the "results" after six months of surging.

The war in Iraq passed a significant but little remarked anniversary this summer. The conflict that President George Bush announced was in effect over on 1 May 2003 has now gone on longer than the First World War.
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Like that great conflict almost a century ago, the Iraqi war has been marked by repeated claims that progress is being made and that a final breakthrough is in the offing.The surge is now joining a host of discredited formulae for success and fake turning-points that the US (with the UK tripping along behind) has promoted in Iraq over the past 52 months.
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Six months after the surge was actually launched, in mid- February, it has failed as dismally as so many First World War offensives. The US Defense Department says that, this June, the average number of attacks on US and Iraqi forces, civilian forces and infrastructure peaked at 177.8 per day, higher than in any month since the end of May 2003.

read the rest

The Surge Lurches On

surge
n 1: a sudden forceful flow [syn: rush, spate, upsurge]
2: a sudden or abrupt strong increase: "stimulated a surge of
speculation"; "an upsurge of emotion"; "an upsurge in
violent crime" [syn: upsurge]
3: a large sea wave [syn: billow]
v 1: rise and move, as in waves or billows; "The army surged
forward" [syn: billow, heave]

The Pentagon announced yesterday that 35,000 soldiers in 10 Army combat brigades will begin deploying to Iraq in August as replacements, making it possible to sustain the increase of U.S. troops there until at least the end of this year.

U.S. commanders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that heightened troop levels, announced by President Bush in January, will need to last into the spring of 2008. The military has said it would assess in September how well its counterinsurgency strategy, intended to pacify Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, is working.

"The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure," said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander for U.S. military operations in Iraq. The new requirement of up to 15-month tours for active-duty soldiers will allow the troop increase to last until spring, said Odierno, who favors keeping experienced forces in place for now.

Read the rest... And the madness continues.

Why "The Way Forward" Won't Work.

I'm certainly no policy wonk nor an insightful insider, just your average, politically curious, angry American. I don't have any 'inside' information or a certain, secret source. I do have every faculty necessary to understand the simple human dynamics involved in the ludicrous "new plan for Iraq" as outlined (does he do more than outline, ever?) by the chimp-in-charge. Most apparent is that it has a snowball's chance in hell of doing anything more than escalating the American death toll in Iraq more quickly than ever before, and that it is another futile attempt to 'win' a war that is already lost. Secondly, this escalation is all about chimpy's megalomania or what Keith Olbermann calls "messianic certitude" and how no one is going to tell him what to do, least of all 'spineless democrats', those 'traitor' friends of Pappy Bush' or those 'whiny Generals', after all, he's "The Decider," and don't none of y'all forgit it.

Beyond all the usual objections to the "way forward" I listened to all day in the news, and the stunning statements by prominent republicans, the basic truth is that regardless of whether Maliki gets his political shit together or not, whether he shows up in the short-term by reining in the militias or not, whether American soldiers start crackin' heads on Shi'ite death squads or not, American Soldiers Will Leave Iraq. Sooner or later, next month or next year, but we will leave. Maliki knows this. Sadr knows this. Even the thick-skulled fucktard in the White House knows this.

Maliki knows what side his bread is buttered on-- the Moqtada al-Sadr side. Shi'a ARE the majority. Moqtada al-Sadr runs the Medhi Army which is the most powerful Iraqi militia, and Iraq is engaged in a civil war, whether chimpy la-la-la's about it or not. If, as new secretary of defense Robert Gates says, the political favors will end and arrested Shi'a will no longer be released, American soldiers will stop looking the other way when Sunni insurgents are arrested or worse and if American soldiers embedded in Iraqi units go into Sadr City to arrest, kill or look cross-eyed at the Shiite inhabitant/followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, guess who's going to end up dead in a ditch? Bush' new way of saying "stay the course" will accelerate the death toll at a higher rate than ever before. Both sides will turn against us. As a side note, I know I'm not the only person to notice in Condyloma* Rice's comment today that she said the same thing about Maliki and "breathing room" as Hitler said about Germany in Mein Kampf. My doctor-husband made an interesting comment today; he said the main problem with Bush is that he never doubts himself. He spoke this to a colleague at the hospital who responded, "A doctor who doesn't question himself kills people."

The only way forward in Iraq is straight out of Iraq.

Keith Olbermann had a great special comment on this tonight, my bet is that Crooks and Liars will post it soon. What'd I tell you, here it is.

The subtext of all of this is of course, is launching a new war on Iran, possibly Syria. Somebody better put the brakes on the crazyman soon. Think Progress has some good stuff on this current situation.

The NYT Anthony Cordesman has a great interactive analysis of the boy-king's speech.

*Do Condy's parents know they named her after an anal wart? Inquiring minds want to know...

Israel to Nuke Iran With US Approval-UPDATED

The Times of London reporting that Israel has a secret plan to bomb Iran if they receive the tacit approval of the US government to "intercede". With the installation of Admiral William Fallon as the new commander in the Middle East, and the Bush administration's "urge to surge", what could be more clear than BushCo plans an acceleration of war to which we have no comparison. Fred Kagan, the Bush advisor credited with planning the "New Way Forward" has written an article detailing his plans for Iraq. This administrations infamous, "stay the course" shows blatant disregard for the will of the American people to end our participation in this illegal, immoral war, and has become as euphonious as Cheney's rejoinder to Patrick Leahy, "Go fuck yourself".

This is not 1944. Global interdiction by the US in support of Israel in the midst of an ongoing war, one with the added compliment of a "culture war" component will make WWII look like a walk in the park. If you care about your country, your future, the future of the planet, write your congressperson and senator demanding "no joy" to the bombing of Iran.