Republicans and Bush's ventrilioquist dummies in the military keep mentioning "signs of success" in Iraq, which are presumably due to the 'surge'. They keep it all very vague so that people who actually still look to these people as a credible source will not examine things too closely. The "signs of success" boil down to these two things:
- Anbar province, where tribal leaders have made statements that they will be taking action on their own against Al-Qaeda.
- A decline of death-squad killings ("sectarian killings" in Bush-speak) in Baghdad.
Before looking into each of these "signs", I would first point the significance underlying them.
Bush keeps hammering away at two points. These are that Iraq is not in a civil war, and that we are in Iraq to fight Al-Qaeda. When sectarian killings occur on a large scale, the White House speaks of Al-Qaeda and how we have to fight them "there" to keep from fighting them "here". When Al-Qaeda springs into the forefront, we hear about a decline of sectarian killings in a specific area. Back and forth it goes, so that we are always "winning" and it's always because of the 'surge'.
Okay, now about those "signs". The first one, involving Anbar, has nothing to do with the 'surge'. In fact, it proves the failure of the 'surge', the sham government, and the illusory Iraqi Army that is going to "stand up" so that we can "stand down". After four and a half years, the U.S. military and the Iraqi military has failed to make much of a dent in Al-Qaeda in Anbar. So now, an essentially vigilante force is taking action, or at least issuing press releases that they are taking action. And this is an improvement? How does this new 'tribal' force distinguish between Al-Qaeda and ordinary citizens? We have seen this before in Baghdad, where 'helpful' Iraqis hand over the names of romantic and business rivals (or merely people they disagree with) as "terrorists" to the authoritites. The prisons run by Iraqi Interior Ministry are, for all intents and purposes, nothing more than torture centres. The result is that the guy who is dating some 'helpful' Iraqi's ex-girlfriend gets thrown into prison and tortured into admitting he is a 'terrorist", and supporters of the war back here point to this as a sign of success against Al-Qaeda. But more importantly, what does this have to do with the 'surge'? Iraqis taking matters into their own hands, rather than letting the Iraqi or U.S. military handle it, is somehow due to an increase in troops? It sounds like it's more of an acknowledgement of failure of our efforts. Lastly, regardless of how many putative "terrorists" do get nabbed by this tribal effort, the fact remains that the government in Anbar is a virtual no-show, that the economic and security infrastructure is a disaster, and that getting rid of putative "al-Qaeda" won't solve these issues. A toilet free of Al-Qaeda is still a toilet.
The second "sign", the decline of sectarian killings, also has nothing to do with the 'surge'. Al-Sadr has simply told his Mahdi Army to stand down temporarliy while his party tries to gain with politics what it has failed to gain with its death squads. And things aren't working too well in that regard, as I've pointed out before. Just this past week we've seen groups of 200 or more carrying out killings with impunity. Bush has pinned his hopes on the weak al-Maliki as a counterbalance to the Sadrists, and even al-Maliki isn't the lapdog that Bush hoped he would be. Instead of breaking things down into phony "Good Guys" and "Bad Guys", we should instead be looking at things as "separatists" and "nationalists". The separatists are, ironically, the side that Bush backs. They want to split the country into three parts, and they also are eager to pass the Hydrocarbon Law so that they can start raking in the money. The Hydrocarbon law was written by the multinational oil companies and it gives them complete control over the Iraqi oil while handing out a cut to the Iraqis. Of course, the oil companies get to keep the books, so they determine how much the Iraqis actually get. And once a separate Kurdistan is declared, Turkey will invade and take the oil anyway. The nationalists are the ones who want to keep Iraq together, but they oppose the Hydrocarbon Law and don't like the foreign occupation. This is a classic civil war scenario: separatists and nationalists. However, if we openly admit this, then we will (rightly) be seen as referees in a civil war, rather than as fighting Al-Qaeda. All Al-Qaeda wants out of this is to stir up Sunnis into killing Shiites, and killing as many U.S. troops as they can. They aren't out for political control.
So, both of these "signs of success" are really false and have nothing to do with the 'surge'.
Oddly nobody in the Bush Administration sees the recent spread of 'sectarian killings' to Kurdistan, an area that's previously been mostly peaceful, as a bad sign. Again, as always, the Republican math is More Deaths=the 'surge' is working, and Less Deaths=the 'surge' is working. See, we just keep "winning". As things get worse, that's just seen as a sign that the proverbial "Bad Guys" are desperate and that we're "turning the corner". Haven't we heard that before?
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