Petraeus: The Surge is Working, Premature Pull-Out Would Be Devastating

If that is the case then how then does our occupation make us safer?

 

That the problem though that you can't take the drain of blood and treasure lightly and the costs are something that we cannot bear indefinately, even Gen. Petraus has said that. Petraus has stated that the surge will end and while he has stated progress has been made there is nothing that indicates that progress is permanent as even he has said that he hasn't seen that much political improvement. Yes I agree that we should minimize the risk in how we leave the problem is that there might very well be no way to minimize that risk and while the Surge has produced some limited success that will be lost once we have to scale back and we are back to square one.

Even accepting Petraus' stats at face value they don't paint an overall successful picture. What they show is limited and uneven relative success but as Petraus himself has acknowledged Iraq cannot be won militarily and needs an accompanying political action. We haven't seen that and until we do we are throwing away blood and treasure for little long term gain.

There is also the other problem is that the Surge isn't making things better but making things worse. That our continued presence is exacerbating the situation and preventing the IRaqis from coming to reasonable political compromise while acting as a magnet for attacks. All of those factors have to be weighed into whether we continue. So while Petraeus may not wish to answer whether the Surge is making us safer that is something that our political leadership has to weigh.

 

If the Soviet Union had stayed in Afghanistan another 100 years, they never would have won and when they left a Taliban analog would have appeared. Staying would have delayed things, but made for a much more bitter and radicalized Taliban replacement.

If you take an ordered system (even one ordered in a negative way) and shake it up it will never spontaneously settle back into another ordered state, no matter how long you keep shaking.

Order can not be imposed from outside in any real way. When we invaded Iraq and broke up all the structures of power we doomed the country to a civil war. The leaving doesn't cause the civil war, the initial intervention made it an inevitability.

 

On the money. This is the plain truth. It's been obvious for a long time that none of the factions view Iraq's future the way we want them to. Their visions of Iraq's future differ so much from each other they are irreconcilable. Why people are still in denial about this escapes me. That is the most frustrating thing for me about the entire Iraq issue (closely followed by the Bush disinformation campaign). After he was broken, Humpty Dumpty couldn't be put back together, no matter how long they took trying to do it.

We must start planning and executing the drawdown and partitioning soon. Waiting until next summer will do no good at all. Bush and minions keep redrawing the lines every few months and waiting until next summer is the latest example.

 

I would say the occupation's affect on the safety of the average American is negligible.

 

I think the stuff that you say would happen if we left is happening now.

The terrorists are there, in relatively small numbers. The reason they are there is because our forces are there. If our forces aren't there, their reason for being there is gone.

 

But the fact is that violence is down as of late....and there is no evidence that the current level of troops is exaberating a situation. It's been a hard year for Al Qaeda in Iraq, and that's a good thing.

When you couple that with the report that says the Iraqi army is a year away from being capable of taking over counter-insurgency efforts, it seems reasonable that we should wait a year to get that force up to speed and then withdrawl.

The expression I'd like to use is this: the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know.

In other words, known risk is better than unknown risk, especially when that unknown risk is potentially catastrophic.

 

Right now, the sectarian violence is actually worse than Al Qaeda in Iraq. Leaving now may let the sectarian violence baloon, and no one knows what influence Iran and Saudi Arabia would do. But one thing is for sure, this has the potential to be a powder keg and widen a conflict by getting Turkey, Iran, and Saudia Arabia in different ways involved.

If Iran starts getting involved, it's naive to think that Sunnis won't make an alliance with Al Qaeda in order to save their own skins. It's just so many possibilities to go bad. We have to be very careful and not make any more rash decisions.

Deciding to dogmatically withdraw with be as closed-minded as the way we went into this war. Two wrongs don't make a right.

 

First of all, why are these reports of the Iraqi army being a year away believable? Nothing the Bush administration has ever said about Iraq has ever come to pass. It's always far too optimistic or a complete falsehood. How many times does one keep believing lies? The Iraqi army will NEVER be in good enough shape/morale/loyalty/discipline to control the country. That is Fantasy Island stuff Bush and minions want people to believe. Let's quit believing we can catch the wild geese. Here's a fact: They always just get further away as has happened the last 4 years. I promise you next summer, the Iraqi army will be just a few more months away. Get it?

"The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know". What is that supposed to mean? I already know Iraq is one devil of a dysfunctional country right now (George Will even questions whether it's a country any more) and it will be no different in one year. It's broken and can't be fixed. The Iraqi army will never be strong enough to hold it together because the political will is not there to do so. Iraq is doomed to be fragmented.

Why are you acting as if we are going to just pull up roots and walk out? Not even Obama or Hillary is advocating that. Bush, his supporters and people like you are not accurately portraying opposing viewpoints. And don't dig up what Moveon.org or some other kook group wants to do. There will be a large permanent American force (out of daily harm's way) left in Iraq. That's a fact everyone influential acknowledges. The terms "dogmatically withdraw" or "cut and run" are just straw men that mean nothing.

For the few of you who actually think we should quickly yank everything out of Iraq by the roots, you are also in Fantasyland. Ain't gonna happen. Cannot happen.

 

I somewhat disagree. I don't believe our occupation is making us safer at all but I don't believe in and of itself it is making us much more in danger from foreign attack. Where it is making things more dangerous is in terms of resources taken away from other potential threats. Several governors have said that they have a harder time responding to local disasters because so much of their national guard is committed to overseas. At the same time extended deployment strains the readiness of our military and that much more difficult to respond to other possible threats. Finally the amount of debt the occupation is costing us only exacerbates the financial burden left to generations yet to come.

 

One problem with that analysis is that most of the problems for Al Qaeda arent' attributed to the surge but to getting Sunni tribesman to cooperate. Now that is a good thing but something that could've been accomplished without the Surge. On top of that arming and paying off Sunni tribesmen presents its own problem.

The next problem is would Al Qaeda even have a foothold if we weren't there? Al Qaeda came to Iraq to fight us and without us that reason is gone and it is doubtful few Iraqis would tolerate their presence.

To follow up on A3PO's point though without a stable and united political leadership the Iraqi army will be dysfunctional. While it might be more military capable if there isn't a unified government it will likely be the tool of one party to work against another or fracture into mutually hostile units allied to various factions.

But the known risks is also catastrophic too and worst since we are in the middle of it very costly for us.

 

No, that's exactly what hillary is advocating. They are saying that the current propose withdrawal of troops isn't enough. We need to bring back more. Based on what? How many?

And it's not the bush admin saying the iraqi army needs another year....c'mon, you act like anything that is against withdrawal must be bush propaganda.

 

look, i don't care if it's the surge or a change in strategy, violence is down. that's a plus.

now, if in the end, we leave, and the iraqi army becomes a domineering tyrannical rule - guess what, that's what Iraq had before. At least there won't be lawlessness. WE're better off if Iraq being any kind of nation vs. anarchy like Afganistan. You have to be realistic. Our goal is no longer to have a non-dysfunctional gov't...it's to prevent anarchy and out of control lawlessness that allows the country to slip into a space where it can be exploited by other groups.

I think we should reform the baathist party and put the sunnis back in power, and build a sunni army and just make things they way they use to be. it was working much better than now.

 

That is a possibility also but it is also a possibility that will happen anyway with us there too. The fact is that the surge and a long term combat presence in Iraq is impossible for us to sustain indefinately. The surge is only a costly bandaid that isn't addressing fundamental issues.

Consider that the Sunnis made an alliance with Al Qaeda in the first place to get at us. While its possible they may align with Al Qaeda again to fight Iran in certain ways that benefits us by forcing Iran to deal with our enemy rather than sapping our own strength.

I will agree with you that a haphazard withdraw isn't in our interests and on a practical basis we won't be out of Iraq until GW Bush is out of office, that is just a political reality since the Democrats don't have the votes to force a withdrawl and any withdrawl will take months anyway. The other reality though is that the Surge cannot be maintained nor a longterm occupation at presurge levels. We will have to leave Iraq at somepoint and rather than trying to keep on talking about victory or surrender we should be considering how we can get out of there in an orderly manner. That's why I personally supported the ISG's recommendations to tone down the military approach and focus on the diplomatic. The truth is that the military approach will have to be toned down but as long as that is the primary response the diplomatic approach will be much harder.

 

so different reasons same result. basically we both realize the same thing but think it's for different reasons. probably close as we'll ever come to agreeing.

 

But the surge is a strain on our resources and has a terrible costs in lives and treasure. You can't just say you support anything when you've been arguing for the surge. If you support anything then why not consider another approach?

Again though can that be accoplimshed in another way? You act as though the surge and continued occupation is the only answer.

 

Very different reasons. I believe the government should be held accountable for the lives and strain of resources due to the surge and ongoing occupation. I believe even if GW Bush will be out of office as a citizen it is still my duty to demand accountability if not for the next election at least for history.

 

there's no way to know how much of the success is a result of the surge vs. alliances with sunnis. but the results have been positive...so probably it's a factor related to both variables.

more troops logically yields more stability. so do alliances.

yes, there is a cost, but since the surge, less american lives are being lost. so in a way, one could argue that the surge may be saving lives - both american and iraqi.

i am not arguing for the surge to be sustained. I am saying that we have no choice but to stay committed to a major deployment in Iraq for another year. I think if the general feels we can remove some troops as he has stated, that's great and we should do that. and next year, as iraqi forces become more trained, we take more troops out. slowly, bit by bit, until we get down to a sustainable level and are constantly assessing.

that's what i am advocating. the situation is too dynamic with too many variable to say we need to take x troops out by y date. instead, let's take a little bit at a time home and make sure things stay stable. this is what the general has proposed and it makes sense to me.

to try to push for faster troops cuts does incure risk and may be construed as reckless. let the army decide how to end this war over time. clearly bush nor congress has any clue.

 

history will always be able to evaluate with a more even keel. and bush is accountable. his presidency is a failure. but it's time to move past that and forget about reasons and look at what we need to do right now, at this moment.

thousands of american and iraq deaths, even more wounded. to leave now, when the end is near, and the iraqi army is finally within a year of being trained (i've never heard them be that close ever)...seems like a waste. get the army trained, let them take over security, and then lets get the hell out.

 

You can't be serious. That has to be sarcasm.



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