Message to the Surge-Success Deniers: "Yo mama"
This is guest blogger Wile E Coyote.
Here is an American Thinker article
describing the surge's success, as well as discussing the next phase.
I hope the article is right.
Here is an American Thinker article
describing the surge's success, as well as discussing the next phase.
I hope the article is right.
posted by LadybugUSA at 6:28 AM
1 Comments:
All in all, this is a good piece of analysis, something more than the vague, hand-waving hot air that so often tarnishes such pieces. However, it does have some serious flaws.
It starts off by claiming that everybody is acknowledging that the surge is working. It would appear that our author has not read the GAO report or the NIE report.
It claims that violence has been reduced by an "incredible 75%" [the author's words]. Well, yes, if you leave 75% of the violence out of your data collection. The military have lately adopted a new method of quantifying violence that doesn't include car bombs or suicide bombings. Mr. Bush explained this new policy as follows:
"If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory," he told TV interviewer Charlie Rose.
It also appears that by using the term "sectarian violence", the Administration is able to exclude all Sunni-on-Sunni and Shia-on-Shia violence.
The analysis of how to defeat insurgencies is good; but it overlooks a central component of the successful counter-insurgency strategies: you have to maintain security for a long time. Our problem is that we simply don't have the troops to accomplish this. Because we have only one-third of the troops required by standard counter-insurgency theory, we can't afford to permanently place troops in one place; they have to move on. And of course, we cannot continue the surge past April without once again extending tours of duty, an option that has been rejected by most of the brass as destructive to morale and recruitment.
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