astonishing, the level of ignorance and indifference one must engage in to repudiate the Surge now... [rquoter] That Was Counterterrorism, Senator Presidential Candidate Obama’s statements in and about Iraq in the past 24 hours have been nothing less than shameless and disgraceful. While we strive to avoid political discussion at ThreatsWatch, criticism of his words transcends rank political partisanship if for no other reason than his claims are simply and flatly untrue, made in a war zone, during a time of war and while running to become the Commander in Chief of US Military Forces. This simply cannot stand unchallenged. Not only does Senator Obama apparently think the Anbar Awakening and the Shi’a militia stand-downs that have occurred are somehow separate developments from the surge, which is a remarkable feat of logic in and of itself, but he is implying that they are part and parcel indigenous to what his ‘plan’ for ‘political progress’ would have afforded. In an interview on ABC World News Tonight last night (Partial transcript here, at bottom), Senator Obama said that, even knowing what he knows now, he would not support ‘The Surge’ if he had it do do over again. No matter our success, shared among Iraqis and American troops. In order to shore his position, he cheapens the Anbar Salvation Council (as it was known in September 2006, perhaps long before the senator knew who they were) as a mere “political factor.” [rquoter] I think that, I did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct.[/rquoter] Of course he didn’t anticipate it. He probably had no idea who they were and is still demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of counterinsurgency. I would remind the candidate that the Anbar Salvation Council (which later grew exponentially and developed into al-Sahwa al-Iraq - the Iraq Awakening) started with one man, Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu al-Risha, and seventy men fighting al-Qaeda in defense of their families, not in pursuit of a ‘political’ anything. They simply wanted to live and end al-Qaeda’s assassination and murdering spree against their families and tribe. Sheikh Abdul Sattar, later assassinated by al-Qaeda in Iraq, had seen 10 family members, including 4 brothers, killed by al-Qaeda for their cooperation with US forces. He had had enough. Obama’s plan - unoriginal and pieced together like a quilt from others against the Iraq war - was entirely Baghdad-centric, about laws and revenue sharing and conferences. The Anbar Awakening had nothing to do with Baghdad when they began and when they turned the neighborhood tides in Ramadi and elsewhere in Anbar province. It was about killing the terrorists before the terrorists killed them. One must, after all, live to ultimately see progress on any scale beyond one’s neighborhoods. Obama wanted laws written, press conferences, and an immediate pull back of US troops. As Senator Chuck Schumer so brilliantly said at the time about ‘the plan,’ US forces were to withdraw post-haste to the periphery “in more of a counterterrorism role.” This would have abandoned the Anbar Salvation Council - and Anbar Sunnis and Shi’a alike - entirely. It would have been feeding them to the bloodthirsty wolves of al-Qaeda so that domestic American political figures could champion themselves as ‘ending a war’ and conducting business “in more of a counterterrorism role.” This is precisely what I tried to scream when I wrote “This Is Counterterrorism, Senator” over a year ago for National Review Online. And winning the counterinsurgency is about aligning a population with us. Neither of these, counterterrorism nor counterinsurgency, could have been successfully addressed by ‘The Plan’ put forth by Obama and others in opposition to The Surge. The Surge was all about protecting the population within their own neighborhoods, while ‘The Plan’ was about abandoning said population to complete animals unassisted. Yet Obama - and surely others - would oppose it all over again. The Iraqis have done what they have done for themselves in spite of the likes of Obama, Schumer, Pelosi and all the rest. What’s more, now that The Surge has accomplished much of what it set out to do to help the Iraqis - again in spite of Obama, Schumer, Pelosi and the rest - a presidential candidate who opposed the surge, would still oppose The Surge and had absolutely no clue about the Anbar Salvation Council when it was pleading and begging for US support (since at least September of 2006) wants to champion their success as somehow his brainchild and a sign of the political development he envisioned? One is left to suppose that he overlooks the fact that so many in Anbar and throughout Iraq are alive in spite of attempts to push such a sacrificial ‘Plan.’ There’s no other way to describe it. Dead people - crucified, baked and beheaded - do not live to contribute to ‘political progress.’ Sheikh Abdul Sattar - and today, his brother Sheikh Ahmed al-Rishawi - understood this. Too many Americans seem flip to dismiss this comfortably from afar. The Anbar Salvation Council didn’t have a damn thing to do with political resolution. It needed to simply survive first; family by family, town by town, tribe by tribe. The movement that eventually saved Iraq laid ignored and unsupported until General David Petraeus changed that when he arrived to command The Surge that Obama said he would still oppose. Obama’s (et al) ‘plan’ and ‘political’ demands would have fed them to the wolves, slaughtered with their families while we were to have breathed a sigh of relief that the war was finally over. Funny thing about the Iraqis: They want to live, no matter what our politicians profess. Today’s remarks simply could not be left to stand unchallenged. By Steve Schippert on July 22, 2008 at 5:50 PM[/rquoter]
HA! Apparently, this guy got his history from McCain's faulty memory or made-up history: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=151585
I read it, and I disagree. Nice to know you not only move goal posts but replace the ball and the playing field as well.
So you believe this statement to be true? Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history. ? Or do you believe that the Awakening only worked because of surge troops, despite this: In March 2007, before the first of the additional troops began arriving in Iraq, Col. John W. Charlton, the American commander responsible for Ramadi, a city in Anbar province, said the newly friendly sheiks, combined with an aggressive counterinsurgency strategy and the presence of thousands of new Sunni police on the streets, had helped cut attacks in the city by half in recent months ?
not sure of your point, the two statements are not contradictory. The Surge, as has been noted countless times, was not just the introduction of additional troops, but a profound change in strategy. that strategy change began before the additional troops, indeed, it could be argued that the success of the new tactics in places like Anbar demostrated that the additional troops, properly used, could provide a paradigm change throughout iraq, and that's in fact what has occurred. the fact that some sheiks began to see the light at the same time, or even before, again indicated that there was an opening- those sheiks still had to be supported. Obama would have slammed that door shut.
Except that the Awakening began even before the surge was even announced, let alone troops being sent there. The two statements aren't contradictory - the first one is just simply false.
no it's not. we moved into anbar, fought back against al queda. the sheik needed support. we provided it, the awakening grew. again, i noted that in my previous post. to suggest that the awakening would have happened w/o the presence and assistance of american troops (albeit in limited numbers, before the "surge" troops began to arrive), much less have spread, is just ridiculous.
yada yada yada all that buffoon mccain can talk about is the surge, we wouldn't have been in this mess if you didn't have something to do with it! Its like breaking someone's window and telling them you got the stronger window to replace it...all he ever talks about is the surge getting on my nerves tbh
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080723/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/al_qaida_afghanistan WASHINGTON - Al-Qaida's foreign fighters who have for years bedeviled Iraq are increasingly going to Afghanistan to fight instead, the Iraqi ambassador to the United States said Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT "We have heard reports recently that many of the foreign fighters that were in Iraq have left, either back to their homeland or going to fight in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is now seeming to be more suitable for al-Qaida fighters," said Ambassador Samir Sumaida'ie. Al-Qaida had training camps and a headquarters in Afghanistan, under the protection of the then-ruling Taliban, until the U.S. invaded after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. With al-Qaida forced out of Afghanistan, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 quickly drew outside fighters there. Sumaida'ie said al-Qaida is finding it now increasingly difficult to operate in Iraq, beginning with the rebellion of the largely Sunni tribes in Anbar Province in 2006 and 2007. Until then, al-Qaida had ruled by intimidation and violence, establishing physical control and setting up a shadow government in large swaths of Iraqi territory. "There were large tracts that were run by al-Qaida, administered by al-Qaida — they had ministers, administrators, paid salaries and so on. This no longer exists, so they do not have any territory to control (where it) is safe for them to move in and around Iraq," he said. "In whole areas they ceased to operate as effective terrorist networks." Sumaida'ie's comments echoed those of the top U.S. military commander in Iraq. Gen. David Petraeus told The Associated Press last week that al-Qaida appears to be reassessing its chances of success in Iraq. "They're not going to abandon Iraq. They're not going to write it off. None of that," Petraeus said. "But what they certainly may do is start to provide some of those resources that would have come to Iraq to Pakistan, possibly Afghanistan. "We do think they are considering what should be the main effort," he said. A U.S. counterterrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence reporting said foreign fighters are generally not leaving Iraq for Afghanistan, but new recruits to al-Qaida are being sent to Afghanistan and Pakistan instead of Iraq. The numbers in all countries are small, however. The vast majority of al-Qaida in Iraq are native born, and extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan are overwhelmingly Pashtun fighters from the region. Sumaida'ie's remarks come as Democratic presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is conducting an overseas trip which included stops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama toured two war zones with Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. Last week they issued a written statement saying that Afghanistan and Pakistan's border area, where the Taliban is resurgent and Osama Bin Laden is believed to be hiding, should be the central front in the war against terrorism. Monthly death tolls of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan surpassed U.S. military deaths in Iraq in May and June, even though there are far fewer coalition troops in Afghanistan. Both Sumaida'ie and Petraeus warned, however, that security progress made in Iraq is not irreversible and al-Qaida could reassert itself there. "If things break down in Iraq, they are capable of coming back," Sumaida'ie said.
McCain didn't credit the Awakening to American troops being there - he credited it being possible specifically because of the surge. So I take you agree that McCain doesn't know basic facts of the Iraq war and how it played out? His timetable: Surge led to protection of sheik (who got assassinated during the actual surge) That made Anbar Awakening possible This is simply false.
again, it's not. the surge was not simply the injection of 30k additional troops. it was also a change in tactics, and those tactics predated the arrival of additional troops, and the (official) announcement of the surge. you ignore this duality, mccain, to his credit, does not. i've said it before, but there's a great deal of info out there that's not in the MSM. michael Yon's book is a great place to start, if you're really interested. and it's cheap.
Foolishness. You and McCain are confusing counterinsurgency actions with the surge. Counterinsurgency tactics have been around a long time and certainly pre-date Iraq. The surge was definitely a response to the Iraq Study Group recommendations, which came out in December of 2006. See these articles and note the dates: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/11/AR2006121100508.html http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/13/bush.iraq/index.html Then there was Kagan's article... he refers to himself as the architect of the surge, so I'm sure he'd be upset at people trying to say it happened before he built it. It's interesting that there is nothing in the Exec Summary of the report that mentions Anbar. The surge had specific outcomes as a goal. Here's the White House Fact Sheet: The political, economic, and regional goals have nothing to do with the Sheiks in Anbar. While it does mention Anbar in one bullet under security, the overall strategy is obviously not based on what has happened before. Bush made a speech to the nation describing the surge in which he said: Notice, he doesn't say "We will continue our current new strategy" or "We will build on our new strategy in Anbar" or anything of the sort. He's talking about a different approach after meeting with the Iraq Study Group and generals and experts through the course of December 2006. He also goes on to say (2/3 of the way down): It is clear by the placement of this in his speech and the lead-in he gives to the Anbar discussion that the systematic changes he's implementing have nothing to do with what's going on in Anbar. He sees the Anbar stuff as a potential success, but that is not what the surge is based on. Bush again, this time in the 2007 State of the Union: McCain screwed up.
You do realize just making up stuff and hoping it will stick as fact is not an effective tactic, no? The above is simply false. The surge was a very specific plan of action with a very specific set of goals.
it was a change of tactics, bolstered by additional troops, applied to the new tactics. and it's been wildly successful, which is perhaps why we're having this discussion at all. you, and rimmy above you, are desparate to denigrate the success of the surge in any way possible, because by so doing, you hope to damage bush and mccain politically, and somehow demonstrate that if we'd all just listened to the dark knight, we'd have had even greater success, and have been long gone from iraq. never mind that it's a ridiculous assumption, and can never be proven. success is staring us in the face- we now must capitalize on the surge and finish the job. this much is certain: mccain is right that Obama, and you, would gladly lose the war if it meant you could win the election.
honestly, If I were mccain i would put all my chips in the iraq basket now, and say yes, violence began to quell, the surge helped, and we were right for taking out saddam and its finally coming together. if you're gonna be about iraq, be about it.
if you want a sense of what happened in ramadi, see this link (warning, PDF) from the man who orchestrated it: http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/CAC/milreview/English/MarApr08/Smith_AnbarEngMarApr08.pdf the surge was these tactics, writ large, applied to all of iraq. mccain knows whereof he speaks.
