The Surge is Working

[Stormin]

Just to clarify things. John Murtha says that the surge is working militarily. Politically the Iraqis are not doing the job. The Iraqi government is dysfunctional. While our military is doing a great job and there is a window of opportunity, the Iraqis still aren't stepping up.

So while we have once again achieved the military objectives. We still have to win the peace.

One needs to look at the total context of his statement and not bits and pieces taken out of context. Until the Iraqis step up, this will never be over.

 

[herbiedoobie]

Let's start with nun-chucks.

Nun-chucks aren't any good, unless you import "Rex" to teach them serious skills.

 

[herbiedoobie]

The Bush administration has to be elated with today's media reports on the surge. I just pray the reports are at least half right.

Might help give some relief to my next door neighbors who had their son sent home in a body bag. At this point, they believe (and I can't blame them) a great many kids have died for oil.

[rant]So???? As long as Americans want an oil-based economy, I have no patience for folks who bring up the "blood for oil" stuff. It blows my mind to listen to someone gripe about "blood for oil" who owns two SUVs and drives to the end of the driveway to pick up their mail.

Oil is valuable, necessary, and is owned by a bunch of 11th century women-hating, terroristic goobers. As long as we (America) want to live in an oil-based society, of course we're going to have to send our soldiers to die to ensure we get it. It takes infrastructure to get oil, and the guys who are fighting us aren't necessarily focused on preserving, or even building more infrastructure. [/rant]

 

[iceclone]

No doubt security has improved, however, that may or may not be the primary motivating reason why refugees are returning.

BBC reports that: "... the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said most of the refugees it spoke to are returning because they have run out of money or have been unable to renew their visas."

Link: BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraqi refugees begin journey home

There are certainly other triggers for people to start moving back home, but if there weren’t real security improvements I think they would be sticking it out in exile despite these hardships. I am indeed pleased for the people who are able to return home, but a more selfish reason for why I find this development particularly encouraging is that I think it would be difficult to declare Iraq “stable enoughâ€￾ and leave with 1.5 million refugees still in Syria. This helps create a better opportunity for withdrawal.

 

[iceclone]

So now what will the Femocrats complain about now? The recession?

I would think that feminist bureaucrats will continue to pursue their agenda with little consideration for events in Iraq; but I don't understand why you are bringing the Aussies into this discussion?

 

[superdorf]

I don't understand why people continue to claim that Iraq was a security threat to the US. They had no air force, basically no army, and last time I checked Iraq had never attacked the US.

I am/was much more worried about N. Korea or China than Iraq... Those are two countries we probably don't want to get involved with.

 

[CYKOFAN]

Hey Wesley- You mean femocrats like John Kerry who fought and bled and earned medals of honor in Nam while brave war supporters like Bush and Chaney used deferments and hid out. Or femocrats like John Edwards who starred on the football field while tough guys like Bush cheered on the sidelines with their pom poms? Your ideas of heros and tough guys are sure different than mine.

 

[alaskaguy]

[rant]So???? As long as Americans want an oil-based economy, I have no patience for folks who bring up the "blood for oil" stuff. It blows my mind to listen to someone gripe about "blood for oil" who owns two SUVs and drives to the end of the driveway to pick up their mail.

Oil is valuable, necessary, and is owned by a bunch of 11th century women-hating, terroristic goobers. As long as we (America) want to live in an oil-based society, of course we're going to have to send our soldiers to die to ensure we get it. It takes infrastructure to get oil, and the guys who are fighting us aren't necessarily focused on preserving, or even building more infrastructure. [/rant]

I sympathize with your rant. The people you are referring to are self-serving buffoons UNLESS they understand that the "oil mission" is unnecessary. I am a member of the latter group who believes that we do not need to send our soldiers to the Middle East to ensure we get oil. In fact, I believe that our costly military presence to date has been counter productive in terms of ensuring we get oil.

Do you believe that Middle Eastern governments would produce less oil if the U.S. ended its Middle Eastern military mission and foreign aid? Or would the Middle Eastern governments provide-or pay others to provide-military services previously provided by the U.S.?

I am linking two papers. The first paper, "Why The Bush Doctrine Cannot Be Sustained" concludes that our military presence in the Middle East reduces the security of the area:

www.psqonline.org/cgi-bin/99_article.cgi?byear=2005&bmonth=fall&a=01free&format=pdf

The second paper, "Energy Alarmism: The Myths That Make Americans Worry About Oil" argues that U.S. foreign and military policy in the Middle East is misguided. The misguided policies are not protecting the U.S. from oil supply disruptions or price spikes. Pages 11 through 16 are the focus of the argument.

www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa589.pdf

 

[herbiedoobie]

I sympathize with your rant. The people you are referring to are self-serving buffoons UNLESS they understand that the "oil mission" is unnecessary. I am a member of the latter group who believes that we do not need to send our soldiers to the Middle East to ensure we get oil. In fact, I believe that our costly military presence to date has been counter productive in terms of ensuring we get oil.

Do you believe that Middle Eastern governments would produce less oil if the U.S. ended its Middle Eastern military mission and foreign aid? Or would the Middle Eastern governments provide-or pay others to provide-military services previously provided by the U.S.?

I am linking two papers. The first paper, "Why The Bush Doctrine Cannot Be Sustained" concludes that our military presence in the Middle East reduces the security of the area:

www.psqonline.org/cgi-bin/99_article.cgi?byear=2005&bmonth=fall&a=01free&format=pdf

The second paper, "Energy Alarmism: The Myths That Make Americans Worry About Oil" argues that U.S. foreign and military policy in the Middle East is misguided. The misguided policies are not protecting the U.S. from oil supply disruptions or price spikes. Pages 11 through 16 are the focus of the argument.

www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa589.pdf

Actually, I'm proposing that if it weren't for western "interference and exploitation" in the middle east, NO oil would be successfully produced there. Arabs did nothing to find it, drill it, get it out of the ground and ship it away, initially, and if we didn't support them, they wouldn't be in power long.

If we did NOT continually "interfere" with the ME, the production would sooner or later lapse, as equipment fell into disrepair, and one wild-eyed revolutionary tribal band after another took turns at overthrowing their respective governments because they were not extreme enough, eventually they would look around and wonder where all the oil money went.

The various kingdoms that exist now, are only there because some dead Brit named Disraeli got out his "cursed crayon" and divvied up the ME in a way that made sense to him, and it was in various outsiders' interest to keep oil flowing.

But that's just my opinion, being stranded in this office building for the next week and a half. :skeptical:

Of course, alternatively, I find myself agreeing with you and the referenced articles.

 

[alaskaguy]

I am one-third of the way through a book titled "The Oil and the Glory, The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune On the Caspian Sea." The book's account of the history of the Caspian Sea region supports your statement that western "interference and "exploitation" was the catalyst for development.

Middle Eastern governments have a greater incentive than we do to worry about the security of production facilities, ports, and sea lanes. In short, I was arguing that whatever security our presence provides (and the first article I linked contends that our presence reduces security) could be provided by other parties were the United States to withdraw militarily.

And that's just my opinion, looking out my den window across the river, and spotting a sled dog team that is mushing along.

 

[herbiedoobie]

I cannot disagree with your point, then.

What I would suggest, is that the "other parties" may not be powerful enough, or motivated enough, to ensure production before it is "too little, too late."

 

[Stormin]

Interesting link which provides insight behind our high oil prices and gasoline prices. Interesting to note that in the mid-1990's the perceived problem to profitabilty by the oil companies was that we had an excess of refinery capacity. So after a concentrated effort by the oil industry and refinery closings coupled with increased demand we now have a refining shortage. Interesting also that while oil companies produce less they are making more. The strategy is working. No wonder Cheney won't release the notes from his secret meetings with oil industry leaders in developing energy policy.

http://www.wyden.senate.gov/issues/wyden_oil_report.pdf

 

[alaskaguy]

An update on the state of Iraq:

As Iraqis and American officials assess the effects of this year’s American troop increase, there is a growing sense that, even as security has improved, Iraq has slipped to new depths of lawlessnes.

One recent independent analysis ranked Iraq the third most corrupt country in the world. Of 180 countries surveyed, only Somalia and Myanmar were worse, according to Transparency International, a Berlin-based group that publishes the index annually.

And the extent of the theft is staggering. Some American officials estimate that as much as a third of what they spend on Iraqi contracts and grants ends up unaccounted for or stolen, with a portion going to Shiite or Sunni militias. In addition, Iraq’s top anticorruption official estimated this fall — before resigning and fleeing the country after 31 of his agency’s employees were killed over a three-year period — that $18 billion in Iraqi government money had been lost to various stealing schemes since 2004.

The collective filching undermines Iraq’s ability to provide essential services, a key to sustaining recent security gains, according to American military commanders. It also sows a corrosive distrust of democracy and hinders reconciliation as entrenched groups in the Shiite-led government resist reforms that would cut into reliable cash flows.

Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/w...&bl&ei=5087&en=891f7f26514c44ff&ex=1196830800

 

[alaskaguy]

Here are two additional opins that the surge can’t be sustained, and that it hasn't worked all that well when applied in regions outside Baghdad. In addition, the opins claim that the chances for political reconciliation are deteriorating. The failure of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions to reconcile threatens the reduction in violence.

Paying Iraqi groups to turn against foreign terrorists has worked in the ethnically uniform Anbar province, which is mostly Sunni. But it has faltered in Diyala province, whose residents include Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Even those Sunnis who have come over to the U.S. side remain deeply suspicious of the Shiites. Making reconciliation even more complicated, Sunnis themselves are splitting into factions with divisions forming between “the new tribal levies and old politicians, Baathists and anti-Baathists, fundamentalist mosque-goers and secular whiskey drinkers.”

Shiites in Parliament have angrily stymied a Bush administration-backed measure to soften the ban on former Baath party members from working in government.

And if you want further doom and gloom click on the two links, particularly the Salon link;

Links:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/08/07/surge/

The Sunni Civil War | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com