Now he is claiming that the "Awakening" (Sahwa) was part of the surge, despite the undeniable facts from the U.S. military itself that the "Awakening" began about six months before Bush even proposed the surge.
“Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others,” Mr. McCain said. “And it began the Anbar Awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history."
Of course "that sheik", Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, was assassinated around the time Petraeus gave his September report. That's just a matter of history. Let's look at Bush's January '07 speech in which he proposed the surge:
Recently, local tribal leaders have begun to show their willingness to take on al Qaeda. And as a result, our commanders believe we have an opportunity to deal a serious blow to the terrorists. So I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops.
Now does that sound as if the "Awakening" started before or after the surge was proposed? Bush gave orders in January 2007 to increase the troop levels by 4000 to support the "Awakening". The sheer gall of McCain's statements becomes apparent when one realises that the Administration (and the GOP) spent the first six months of 2007 stridently claiming that the surge had not even started yet. Though many considered the surge to have begun in mid-February, the Republicans shrieked that the surge would only begin when the troop levels were at "full-strength" in late July or early August 2007. Again and again, they repeated that Petraeus' September report was premature because the surge had only been in progress for two months.
Seemingly oblivious to his own previous talking points, McCain neatly re-defined the term "surge" as "a counter-insurgency campaign". If "the surge" and the "counter-insurgency strategy" are simply the same thing, then why did the Republicans deny that the surge did not really start until July '07? Why do we only hear of this new definition of the surge a year after the Republicans claim that it actually started?
“First of all, a surge is really a counterinsurgency strategy,” Mr. McCain said in Bethlehem, Pa. “And it’s made up of a number of components. And this counterinsurgency was initiated to some degree by Colonel MacFarland in Anbar Province, relatively on his own. And I visited with him in December of 2006. He had already initiated that strategy in Ramadi by going in, and clearing and holding in certain places. That is a counterinsurgency. And he told me at that time that he believed that that strategy, which is quote ‘the surge,’ part of the surge, would be, would be, successful.”
“So then, of course, it was very clear that we needed additional troops in order to carry out this insurgency,” he said. “Prior to that they had been going into places, killing people or not killing people, and then withdrawing. And the new counterinsurgency, the surge, entailed going in and clearing and holding, which Colonel MacFarland had already started doing. And then of course, later on, there were additional troops, and General Petraeus said that the surge would not have worked, and the Anbar Awakening would not have taken place, successfully, if they hadn’t had an increase in the number of troops.”
So there you have it. The surge is whatever McCain says it is. The invasion itself was 'clearly' part of the surge, since the surge nor the Anbar Awakening could have taken place without it. Bush's election was part of the surge. Perhaps McCain's own birth was part of the surge. To say that the surge, itself an increase in the number of troops, would not have worked without an increase in the number of troops sounds a bit silly, but here we are. Everything good is the result of the surge, whatever it is and whenever it happened.
Meanwhile, the Sahwa want more money...or else.
Prof. John Cole writes candidly regarding the "success":
The only evidence presented for the thesis that the "surge" "worked" is that Iraqi deaths from political violence have declined in recent months from all-time highs in the second half of 2006 and the first half of 2007. (That apocalyptic violence was set off by the bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra in February of 2006, which helped provoke a Sunni-Shiite civil war.) What few political achievements are attributed to the troop escalation are too laughable to command real respect.
Proponents are awfully hard to pin down on what the "surge" consisted of or when it began. It seems to me to refer to the troop escalation that began in February, 2007. But now the technique of bribing Sunni Arab former insurgents to fight radical Sunni vigilantes is being rolled into the "surge" by politicians such as John McCain. But attempts to pay off the Sunnis to quiet down began months before the troop escalation and had a dramatic effect in al-Anbar Province long before any extra US troops were sent to al-Anbar (nor were very many extra troops ever sent there). I will disallow it. The "surge" is the troop escalation beginning winter of 2007. The bribing of insurgents to come into the cold could have been pursued without a significant troop escalation, and was.
Aside from defining what proponents mean by the "surge," all kinds of things are claimed for it that are not in evidence. The assertion depends on a possible logical fallacy: post hoc ergo propter hoc. If event X comes after event Y, it is natural to suspect that Y caused X. But it would often be a false assumption. Thus, actress Sharon Stone alleged that the recent earthquake in China was caused by China's crackdown on Tibetan protesters. That is just superstition, and callous superstition at that. It is a good illustration, however, of the very logical fallacy to which I am referring.
Of course, McCain's claim that "casualties and deaths are at their lowest point" is also false.
McCain is not only wrong about that, either. He has been wrong, so very wrong, for a long time.
Cole sums it up:
Look, it is more important that McCain was consistently wrong. He was wrong about the desirability of going to war against Iraq. He was wrong about it being a cakewalk. He was wrong about there being WMD there. He was wrong about everything. And he was wrong about the troop escalation making things better. The casualty figures dropped in al-Anbar, where few extra US troops were ever sent. They dropped in Basra, from which the British withdrew. Something happened. Putting it all on 30,000 extra troops seems a stretch. And what about all the ethnic cleansing and displacing of persons that took place under the nose of the "surge?" McCain has been wrong about everything to do with Iraq. And he is boasting about his wisdom on it!
Our invasion and occupation of Iraq has removed Iran's greatest foe and increased the profile of Iran throughout the region. The majority Shia 'nation' of Iraq is far closer to Iran than it ever has been. Millions have fled this "success" to live in squalor. Over a hundred thousand Iraqis have died. The 18 Iraqi brigades that Bush was so confident would take over when he made in his speech in January '07 still have not materialised. Provincial elections are moving further away, not closer.
McCain continues to distort the issue of withdrawal "timetables" as well. Obama's 16 month timetable is considered 'surrender' because it is not based on "conditions on the ground".
Yes, surely we must believe that even if Iraq should somehow collapse, Obama will be looking at his watch, and when the 16 months are up he will pull out all of the troops regardless of the conditions on the ground. We believe that, right?
Does McCain have confidence in the surge or not? If so, then let's not worry about "timetables". If not, then all of his talk about "winning" is just froth. Maliki says 16 months is a reasonable timetable, and this whole ugly mess was supposed to be about "liberating" Iraqis and letting them "stand up". If we never make plans to leave, then we never will leave. McCain is now just stalling in hopes of getting some oil concessions out of this mess.
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