It is intensely irritating to hear McCain repeat again and again that he supported the “Surge” strategy and that this strategy is responsible for a reduction in violence in Iraq. Furthermore, Obama is now whistling this tune in an effort to endear uninformed Americans and convince them of his competence on national security.
In all this talk of surge success,
very little is being mentioned of the immense amount of cash being handed over to many of Iraq’s violent tribes and militias – putting vast amounts of criminals on U.S. payroll to NOT reach for their automatic weapons and plant IEDs. You got it. We’re monetarily bribing down the violence. And we’ll likely continue to do so as we reduce troop numbers.
I’m not saying I oppose this strategy. Whatever works, right? But to continuously claim “The surge is a success” without acknowledging the effect of these payoffs is equivalent to presenting a facade to the American people. Of course, we should expect nothing less. How many lies were told to garner support for the war in the first place?
Yet we hear over and over that the surge’s success has proven McCain right. I know at some point I should develop a callous to the lies, but it seems nearly impossible and we’re all left with high blood pressure and anger over our leaders’ inabilities to prioritize truth over popularity.
Finally, CNN offered an interview with terrorism expert Peter Bergen on 360 last night in which he said,
I actually think both the Democrats and the Republicans have been overemphasizing the surge.
If it was just about the surge, the violence would be back up again because the surge is over. There are some underlying factors that are much more important in Iraq in my view.
One — the fact that Al Qaeda in Iraq, they basically scored a series of own goals by its Taliban-style tactics, producing this wave of revulsion against and amongst the Sunnis.
Now we put up a 100,000 Sunni militia on the American payroll, people who used to be shooting at the United States who are now on our payroll.
We also see the Prime Minister Maliki, no one could say a good thing about him a year and a half ago in Washington. Turning out to be a somewhat effective leader going into Basra, taking out the Shia militias there, going into Sadr City, taking out the Shia militias there.
We’ve also seen the Iraqi army which, Anderson, is really much larger than the Afghan army and much more effective in a country which is smaller and with a smaller population.
So there were some underlying factors that actually suggest that long- term success in Iraq is plausible. It’s possible the surge, of course, was one aspect of it. But to say that the surge caused all these changes is I think simply very simplistic essentially.
Also,
Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films produced a video report entitled Uncovering the Truth Behind the Anbar Success Story showing Sunni leaders who had formerly been associated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and responsible for ethnic cleansing being paid off. In an interview with Katie Halper of Alternet.org last September, Rowley indicated,
There have been a lot of reports about the fact that the people who the U.S. is working with, the supposed “freedom fighters,” the “counter-insurgents” are former insurgents. They were Iraqi al Qaeda before they started working with the Americans. That is troubling because if they were fighting the Americans once, they’ll fight Americans again. And more troubling for the future of Iraq is the fact that many of the tribes that the U.S. is working with are war criminals who are directly responsible for ethnic cleansing and who are using American support to prepare for sectarian civil war. The U.S. is funding Sunni militias. They already funded the Shia militias. They’re now funding all sides of this sectarian war.
A "liberated" Iraq told us to leave and the Iraqi death toll was higher when we were there, not after we left. Germany isn't comparable, the Nazis started the war, the Iraqis did not. Thats just the first of several flaws with your analogy... 
