McSurge

winthrop · 03-07-2008, 11:10 AM

From Rolling Stone:

The Myth of the Surge

It’s a cold, gray day in December, and I’m walking down Sixtieth Street in the Dora district of Baghdad, one of the most violent and fearsome of the city’s no-go zones. Devastated by five years of clashes between American forces, Shiite militias, Sunni resistance groups and Al Qaeda, much of Dora is now a ghost town. This is what “victory” looks like in a once upscale neighborhood of Iraq: Lakes of mud and sewage fill the streets. Mountains of trash stagnate in the pungent liquid. Most of the windows in the sand-colored homes are broken, and the wind blows through them, whistling eerily. House after house is deserted, bullet holes pockmarking their walls, their doors open and unguarded, many emptied of furniture. What few furnishings remain are covered by a thick layer of the fine dust that invades every space in Iraq. Looming over the homes are twelve-foot-high security walls built by the Americans to separate warring factions and confine people to their own neighborhood. Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush’s much-heralded “surge,” Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood. Apart from our footsteps, there is complete silence.

The rest of the sorry story...

mudwhistle · 03-07-2008, 11:12 AM

Rolling Stone is a magazine for liberal potheads. Anecdotal evidence from hippies does not trump all the data showing the outstanding success of the surge.

By the way I think you need to update your tagline. Nancy Pelosi now has ten months left in her term.

winthrop · 03-07-2008, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mudwhistle

Rolling Stone is a magazine for liberal potheads. Anecdotal evidence from hippies does not trump all the data showing the outstanding success of the surge.

I am certain in this short of a time you did not actually read the article.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mudwhistle

By the way I think you need to update your tagline. Nancy Pelosi now has ten months left in her term.

Thank you for noticing my tagline, but on March 20 I will change it to "10 moron months left", since that is the number of months until the next president, whomever it is, will be inaugurated, and we will be rid of the Fool in the Oval Office.

Noob920 · 03-07-2008, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mudwhistle

Rolling Stone is a magazine for liberal potheads. Anecdotal evidence from hippies does not trump all the data showing the outstanding success of the surge.

By the way I think you need to update your tagline. Nancy Pelosi now has ten months left in her term.

Haven't you heard? General "Betray Us" is NOW nothing but a pawn of the President.

winthrop · 03-07-2008, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noob920

Haven't you heard? General "Betray Us" is NOW nothing but a pawn of the President.

Another speed reader, eh? How is Evelyn these days?

winthrop · 03-07-2008, 11:43 AM

Here, gentlemen, is some more:

The American forces responsible for overseeing "volunteer" militias like Osama's* have no illusions about their loyalty. "The only reason anything works or anybody deals with us is because we give them money," says a young Army intelligence officer. The 2nd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, which patrols Osama's territory, is handing out $32 million to Iraqis in the district, including $6 million to build the towering walls that, in the words of one U.S. officer, serve only to "make Iraqis more divided than they already are." In districts like Dora, the strategy of the surge seems simple: to buy off every Iraqi in sight. All told, the U.S. is now backing more than 600,000 Iraqi men in the security sector — more than half the number Saddam had at the height of his power. With the ISVs in place, the Americans are now arming both sides in the civil war. "Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems," as U.S. strategists like to say. David Kilcullen, the counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. Petraeus, calls it "balancing competing armed interest groups."

But loyalty that can be purchased is by its very nature fickle. Only months ago, members of the Awakening were planting IEDs and ambushing U.S. soldiers. They were snipers and assassins, singing songs in honor of Fallujah and fighting what they viewed as a war of national liberation against the foreign occupiers. These are men the Americans described as terrorists, Saddam loyalists, dead-enders, evildoers, Baathists, insurgents. There is little doubt what will happen when the massive influx of American money stops: Unless the new Iraqi state continues to operate as a vast bribing machine, the insurgent Sunnis who have joined the new militias will likely revert to fighting the ruling Shiites, who still refuse to share power.

Yes, just a "stunning success".

*No, excitable boys, not that one...

Noob920 · 03-07-2008, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by winthrop

Another speed reader, eh? How is Evelyn these days?

Shesendsyouherlove

03-07-2008, 11:10 AM	#1 (permalink)
winthrop Mediator for the Messes Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 2,423 Thanks: 36 Thanked 113 Times in 85 Posts	McSurge From Rolling Stone: The Myth of the Surge It’s a cold, gray day in December, and I’m walking down Sixtieth Street in the Dora district of Baghdad, one of the most violent and fearsome of the city’s no-go zones. Devastated by five years of clashes between American forces, Shiite militias, Sunni resistance groups and Al Qaeda, much of Dora is now a ghost town. This is what “victory” looks like in a once upscale neighborhood of Iraq: Lakes of mud and sewage fill the streets. Mountains of trash stagnate in the pungent liquid. Most of the windows in the sand-colored homes are broken, and the wind blows through them, whistling eerily. House after house is deserted, bullet holes pockmarking their walls, their doors open and unguarded, many emptied of furniture. What few furnishings remain are covered by a thick layer of the fine dust that invades every space in Iraq. Looming over the homes are twelve-foot-high security walls built by the Americans to separate warring factions and confine people to their own neighborhood. Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush’s much-heralded “surge,” Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood. Apart from our footsteps, there is complete silence. The rest of the sorry story...
	Top

03-07-2008, 11:12 AM	#2 (permalink)
mudwhistle Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Tennessee Posts: 949 Thanks: 178 Thanked 34 Times in 20 Posts	Rolling Stone is a magazine for liberal potheads. Anecdotal evidence from hippies does not trump all the data showing the outstanding success of the surge. By the way I think you need to update your tagline. Nancy Pelosi now has ten months left in her term.
	Top

03-07-2008, 11:43 AM	#6 (permalink)
winthrop Mediator for the Messes Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 2,423 Thanks: 36 Thanked 113 Times in 85 Posts	My pleasure to be of service! Here, gentlemen, is some more: The American forces responsible for overseeing "volunteer" militias like Osama's* have no illusions about their loyalty. "The only reason anything works or anybody deals with us is because we give them money," says a young Army intelligence officer. The 2nd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, which patrols Osama's territory, is handing out $32 million to Iraqis in the district, including $6 million to build the towering walls that, in the words of one U.S. officer, serve only to "make Iraqis more divided than they already are." In districts like Dora, the strategy of the surge seems simple: to buy off every Iraqi in sight. All told, the U.S. is now backing more than 600,000 Iraqi men in the security sector — more than half the number Saddam had at the height of his power. With the ISVs in place, the Americans are now arming both sides in the civil war. "Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems," as U.S. strategists like to say. David Kilcullen, the counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. Petraeus, calls it "balancing competing armed interest groups." But loyalty that can be purchased is by its very nature fickle. Only months ago, members of the Awakening were planting IEDs and ambushing U.S. soldiers. They were snipers and assassins, singing songs in honor of Fallujah and fighting what they viewed as a war of national liberation against the foreign occupiers. These are men the Americans described as terrorists, Saddam loyalists, dead-enders, evildoers, Baathists, insurgents. There is little doubt what will happen when the massive influx of American money stops: Unless the new Iraqi state continues to operate as a vast bribing machine, the insurgent Sunnis who have joined the new militias will likely revert to fighting the ruling Shiites, who still refuse to share power. Yes, just a "stunning success". No, excitable boys, not that* one...
	Top

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