The Surge in Baghdad

http://tomhayden.com/

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News & Politics

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• tom
• hayden
• baghdad
• iraq
• iraqi
• war
• bush
• petraeus
• sectarian
• violence
• shiite
• sunni

[bondurango]

Gen. Petraeus' "surge" strategy was nothing more than a surge in bribery. He basically bought off the insurgents. So much for the notion that this had anything to do with radical Islam, Al Qaeda or even ethnic differences between Sunnis & Shiites. It turns out that the insurgency was, at the outset, the strategy of Saddam's military which simply went underground & fought a guerrilla war. But these guys are nothing more than gangsters & it was old fashioned payola that did the trick.

[kazooga1234]

this is how i fig the republicans do things its make the rich richer and who ever isnt in the higher class have to go to war where they then get badly abused caz there is no way for them to afford school unless they do and stuff like that and that is if they dont die and get siriously injured dose that happen

[BrezhnevIsMyCoPilot]

...Because they're being paid by us.

Al Qaeda in Iraq was never even close to being the largest part of the insurgency, so defeating it is hardly a great victory. You seem also to conveniently forget Muqtada Al-Sadr's year-long ceasefire, which might be ending at the moment. When/if that ends, casualty rates will likely return to 100+ American soldiers dying a month.

Also, if you want to call me "clueless" and have it at all believable, try to use proper spelling and grammar...

[BrezhnevIsMyCoPilot]

The Surge is bribing our erstwhile enemies to not attack us. Sunni insurgents are now in "Awakening Councils" that control little fiefdoms that American soldiers avoid. Paying off the "bad guys" is not the same as going after the "bad guys".

[Methadone4Life]

The surge has worked great..for about 3 square miles. Nothing that the GOP or Bush has ever done has worked,well except to make the rich even wealthier and to make the working class and the poor suffer even more. We have lost our civil liberties by the boatload,our economy is in ruins because of the cost of this idiotic war,recession is here..soon to be depression,gas prices have skyrocketed under Bush. Do not believe the hype..2007 was the DEADLIEST year yet. Surge working? Bush=failure

[fvhjr]

Do you look at The Surge as a mechanism? Do you know how it specifically works?

[fvhjr]

The Surge is basically:

Removing Right to Bear Arms & Removing Militias. Sound familiar?

[ginganz13]

What you really need to do then is explain what is wrong with wanting the occupying forces out of their country & in the face of vastly superior power using 'terror' tactics? The Iraqi insurgency is a popular movement of Iraqi's, not  Al Quadea. They are doing exactly the same as the French resistance did.

[ginganz13]

Rather depends on which definition you are 'choosing'. Anyhow euphemisms whichever one you choose don't change the facts - why don't you try refute the facts rather than hiding behind semantic arguments.

[ginganz13]

That's the old definition not the current one.

I understand that you are 'choosing' definitions to prop up indefensible US foreign policy.