Kevin: Pretending otherwise is simply fraudulent.

Ah, there's their out.

It would not have happened if the tribes thought we were going to cut and run. No amount of wishful thinking on the left will change that.

"it involves arming and training Sunni forces who are almost certain to turn against both us and the Shiite central government as soon as they've finished off AQI."

So it's not even true that the turn in Anbar is unalloyed good news. If we render any fighting force in Iraq more effective, the real significance of our "accomplishment" have been drawn down and the civil war intensifies.

No, Kevin. They said that the surge has "helped" turn the tribes against AQI.

To demonstrate that "This. Is. A. Lie." you need to
demonstrate that the surge has _not_ helped that process. Demonstrating that the process started
prior to the surge does not falsify those soldiers'
claim.

Smarter bloggers, please.

The point that the Anbar Sunnis turned against al Qaeda long before the surge began is well taken, and takes away perhaps Bush's chief talking point in favor of the notion that the surge has succeeded. Has any member of the opposition party made this point? Not that I've heard. So either the media was remiss in picking it up or the party was remiss in failing to induce the media to pick it up.

Scads of free firearms and 170 million rounds of ammo buys some *ahem* "loyalty" in the short term.

Say it slowly: This. Is. A. Lie.

Hillary Clinton says you're wrong.

Link

"With nearly three weeks to go before the American commander in Iraq goes before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, it's clear that his message will be that the surge has made progress and needs more time."
" In a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday, presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton joined the chorus. "We've begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly Al Anbar province, it's working," she said. "We're just years too late in changing our tactics.""

It would not have happened if the tribes thought we were going to cut and run. No amount of wishful thinking on the left will change that.

Of course it would have. They don't need us to defend themselves from AQI. They need us to let them defend themselves.

well, it doesn't seem especially illogical to suppose that the presence of additional U.S. troops helps the Anbar turnabout succeed and might encourage any waverers on the fence to join in....so I think it's fair to say that the surge may well be a factor in the success (such as it is) of the Anbar turnabout.

but agreed that the NR phrasing is misleading..and..as written, wrong.

The Voice of the NeoCons is lying?

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

No, Kevin. They said that the surge has "helped" turn the tribes against AQI. To demonstrate that "This. Is. A. Lie." you need to
demonstrate that the surge has _not_ helped that process. Demonstrating that the process started
prior to the surge does not falsify those soldiers' claim.

No. To falsify that statement all Kevin needs to do is show that the tribes turned against AQM before the surge, which he did.

However, your sleight of hand of pretending that a process that was completed is still ongoing is cute.

Smarter trolls please.

minion: "It would not have happened if the tribes thought we were going to cut and run. No amount of wishful thinking on the left will change that."

Actually, it would've happened much sooner without US troops there. Without Americans to train their sights on, they'd be fighting each other for territory, prestige, and whatever counts for principle among those kinds of groups.

By the way, I love it when people who support the war talk about wishful thinking on the part of others.

That isn't the only lie in NR's editorial, or even the biggest one. Josh Patashnik ( http://www.tnr.com/blog/the_plank?pid=137407 ) points out that they've suddenly totally reversed their years-long position on whether US or Iraqi troops should take the lead in the war -- and are now furiously attacking the Dems for supposedly embracing the same position that NR itself did until a few months ago!

Oops. Kevin had already read Patashnik. Well, I still think that that's the most outrageous lie in the NR editorial, although it certainly has competition.

This is a fabulous commentary. Combine it with a number of informed comments espousing that when we leave the Sunnis will kick Shia butt and regain armed control.
Voila! Bush will have completed the world's most spectacular zero sum maneuver; except for the several hundred thousand dead and uprooted and the pissed away five hundred billion simoleans, that is.
- cognitorex -

they've suddenly totally reversed their years-long position on whether US or Iraqi troops should take the lead in the war -- and are now furiously attacking the Dems for supposedly embracing the same position that NR itself did until a few months ago!

That's what I love about wingnuts -- they are completely without shame. If only they weren't all fat and ugly they might have opted for stripping as a career choice instead.

of course, one can argue that a flat-out Shiite/Sunni civil war in Iraq will also be good where the cause of weakening al-Qaida in Iraq is concerned -- al the Sunnis will be too busy running for their lives to plot much terrorism against the US or set up much in the way of training camps. That, however, will still leave us stuck with an Iraq governed by Shiites with strong Iranian sympathies (that little fact that the remaining Bushites keep carefully failing to mention: the fact that the US has TWO serious enemies in Iraq, and one of them is bound to win).

it involves arming and training Sunni forces who are almost certain to turn against both us...

but Kevin, this HARDLY EVER happens. Which reminds me, anyone see the Daily Show on Wed and the "America to the Rescue" segment? The video is pure genius.

Hillary Clinton says you're wrong.

Hillary Clinton espousing a particular proposition is not evidence that the proposition is not a lie.

Pretending otherwise is simply fraudulent.

So was pretending that we had evidence of Winnebagoes of Mass Destruction, or of Saddam's "reconstituted nuclear weapons", or that we knew where Saddam's WMD were, or that Saddam had some meaningful relationship with al Qaeda, or, for that matter, nearly everything else the administration has said justifying any element of their policy toward Iraq since before the war started.

(c) it involves arming and training Sunni forces who are almost certain to turn against both us and the Shiite central government as soon as they've finished off AQI.

ISTR that officials in the Iraqi government have objected to the policy because it involves arming and training Sunni forces that are, in some cases, currently fighting against the central government as well as al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, rather than waiting until that group is finished off to turn against the central government.

Well, then. Since the Sunni are now against al Qaida, our work in Iraq is done. We can leave Iraq to the Iraqis now. No terrorist threat. No, fight them there so that we won't need to fight them here.

The war is over if you want it.

Al Qaeda in Iraq is a manifestation of the revolutionary movement that challenges the modernized Sunni religious establishment. It is known as Salafism (Salaf means something like ‘pious ancestors’).

As Juan Cole explains:
...the Salafi school of modern Islamic thought, which has a Protestant-like emphasis on going back to the original practice of the early companions of the Prophet Muhammad. (Most Salafis are not militant or violent, though they tend to be rather narrow-minded in my experience, on the order of Protestant Pietists). Monotheism and Holy War obviously does have a violent interpretation of Salafism, rather as the leaders of the so-called German Peasant Rebellion among early Protestants did.

Like protestant fundamentalism it is a diffused reaction to modernization without a central unifying authority. There is also emphasis on individual interpretation of sacred texts, but they insist on strict sharia law. The idea that someone is “routing the terror group from Iraq” is a bit like saying someone is routing protestant fundamentalists from Texas. The establishment Sunnis have been fighting these folks in one way or another for more than 100 years. They are natural enemies of those sympathetic to Baathism. Of course, Josh Patashnik wants his readers to believe, and perhaps Josh Patashnik believes, that al Qaeda in Iraq is the same al Qaeda menace that perpetrated 9/11 and threatens the peace of the world. Every word in his Pravda-worthy article is untrue. They are not who he says they are, they are not being routed, what is going on has nothing to do with the silly surge, the Sunni groups are not on the side of the occupation, George Bush is not a visionary, and few in America understand what any of the factions are or what they are doing. Even if Mr. bin Laden were in Iraq directing his gang it would make little difference.

It their war. Let them justify it to themselves however they wish. It's always going to be lose-lose in my book.

What can you say to a 24%er?!

P.S. Does anyone want to talk about anything interesting?

I'd love to meet those "Democrats who thought the best strategy against al Qaeda in Iraq was to begin to leave." I mean, I know Democrats who think the best strategy against embroiling ourselves in a multi-pronged civil war in Iraq is to leave, and I know Democrats who think that the Bush regime is deliberately overinflating the threat of al Qaeda in Iraq, which is at most no more than 5% of the rebellion, in order to confuse the American voter, but I've never before seen these heretofore mythical Democrats who believe Patashnik's rather creative formulation.

Beat that strawman! Beat him good!

The Anbar Awakening is genuinely good news, but (a) it had nothing to do with the surge, (b) it's happening only in homogeneous Sunni areas, and (c) it involves arming and training Sunni forces who are almost certain to turn against both us and the Shiite central government as soon as they've finished off AQI. Pretending otherwise is simply fraudulent.

um... I agree with a, b and c, but doesn't (c) kind of undercut your "genuinely good news" argument? I think it kind of does.
Annihilates it, actually.

So if the Sunnis are cleaning house, and the foreign Al Qaeda fighters can no longer fight us over there, then they'll have to fight us . . .

Get pissed Kevin. We need to call out these liars every chance we get.

The greatest failure of the Democratic Party in the past ten years is letting the lies of the right-wing go unchallenged. Call them out - call them out every chance you get!!!

Pretending otherwise is simply fraudulent.

Fraud is how we got here.
.

Rightwing conspiracy.Hilary was correct all those years ago.Clinton/Clinton o8.Who else you gonna vote for.

When is America going to have a FUBAR Awakening?

So here we are, US economy teetering on the brink of destruction because of a liquidity crisis;

. . . and nobody's talking about the hundreds of billions of dollars Bush has added to the deficit?

No - it's all caused by deadbeats who should have kept on renting.

Kevin is very good on domestic politics, but surprisingly bad on Iraqi and military matters. Now he asserts: (1) the Anbar Awakening "had nothing to do with the surge;" and (2)it is a "lie" to say "the surge has helped turn Sunni tribes against al Qaeda."

I don't think Kevin is engaging in any intentional falsification here, but he is obviously wrong on both points. It seems like he becomes so emotional and partisan on these issues that it blocks his reasoning. And remember Kevin was advocating a week or so ago a column that stated if you are not in Iraq for an extended period of time, you don't know what is currently happening on the ground. Now Kevin thinks he knows exactly what is going on? Very hard to understand Kevin's weaknesses on these issues.

Kevin, I'd say it's also not true that the "Anbar Awakening" is good news, since, as you said, at some point, these Sunni tribes are likely to turn against us, even while we're arming them now.

In my recollection, it is worse than Kevin's characterization.

Many Sunnis were allied against the occupation (the motivations for this are tied to our lack of a post-invasion plan, but I'll stick to the specifics of the post). Al Qaeda types tried to take control of all anti-occupation forces, and also impose their religious fundamentalism. At this point (at least a year, and probably much earlier) Iraqi Sunni Sheiks approached the US for help to combat the fundamentalists but were rebuffed till fairly recently. So, to the degree that Anbar has been a success, we were late to appreciate this solution.

Additionally, we might do well to realize that even in areas of confessional homogeneity (Basra, for example) there are power struggles between factions. We can expect the same to happen in Anbar, and there has been some reporting of some Anbar sheiks (who aren't receiving US support) are complaining that others (those who are) are attempting their own mini-occupation.

I add that even in the North, Turkey is complaining that some Kurds are supplying Turkish separatists with American arms (they definitely have the weapons, but our records are so incomplete, that we aren't in any position to say what their origins are).

I think we armed the Sunni tribes to help take out AQM because we were stretched so thin that we didn't have any CHOICE (despite extra troops-"the surge"). The focus became Baghdad and Diyala to quell sectarian tensions and we didn't have the manpower to fight both fronts there. I think the decision to arm the Sunni tribes was made knowing FULL WELL that we were going to be leaving (slower or faster, but sooner rather than later).

*Those* weapons will not as likely get used on us this time , just a hunch. Those weapons will be used against the Shia while we are getting out. And... if Iran steps in to help out the Iraqi government, we will give the Sunnis a lot more weapons.

This way the Pubs can say that:
1) We've eliminated the AQ threat in Iraq-success!
2) The Shia are getting killed now because they have all along been allied with evil Iran.
3) Sorry we had to bomb Iran, but we had to help the poor Sunnis out who helped us get rid of AQ.

Demonstrating that the process started
prior to the surge does not falsify those soldiers'
claim.

Yes it does. They're taking credit for something that isn't the result of their actions, and that something is the arming of Sunni insurgents and putting them on the payroll to fight AQ.

"I don't think Kevin is engaging in any intentional falsification here, but he is obviously wrong on both points."

LOL.... Dear heart, Not only is Kevin absolutely correct on both points, as he proved conclusively, but in this silly little rant of yours, you post not one shred of any actual evidence. Your post was absolutely hilarious in its cluelessness, though, so it wasn't a total waste of time.

Hmm... I found this on BlueBloggin.com. McElroy writes for the Telegraph. It was published on July 27, 2007. And now Petraeus is out. Interesting, huh?

"Iraqi leader tells Bush: Get Gen Petraeus out
By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent

Relations between the top United States general in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, the country’s prime minister, are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal for his removal to President George W Bush.

Although the call was rejected, aides to both men admit that Mr Maliki and Gen David Petraeus engage in frequent stand-up shouting matches, differing particularly over the US general’s moves to arm Sunni tribesmen to fight al-Qa’eda.

At another meeting with Gen Petraeus, Mr Maliki said: “I can’t deal with you any more. I will ask for someone else to replace you.”

Now he (Kevin) asserts: (1) the Anbar Awakening "had nothing to do with the surge;" and (2)it is a "lie" to say "the surge has helped turn Sunni tribes against al Qaeda."

I don't think Kevin is engaging in any intentional falsification here, but he is obviously wrong on both points.

Not obvious here. Once, just once brian it would be nice to see you try and offer some support for one of your silly assertions. Do edify.

The NR quote says the surge has "helped turn" Sunni tribes against AQ. It doesn't say they helped Sunnis who already turned against AQ (which would be accurate). This is an important distinction because it gives credit to the surge for initiating a policy that predates it. Kinda like Giuliani taking all the credit for broken windows policing when Bratton, the author of it, began the policy under Dinkins.

You folks might care to factor in the very significant help the Sunnis are receiving from the Saudis.

It may well be that the Saudi help is more signficant than the American.

Go back to when Dick Cheney was summoned to Riyadh last August by a none-too-happy but determined King Abdullah who apparently gave the vice president an earful and let him know that the Saudis were not about to let the Sunnis in Iraq go under, not without a fight, that is. By your own calcultions, shortly afterwards the tribes started a process of co-operative action which American forces eventually joined.

The situation did not go unnoticed by the Shia militants, as you might well expect and, voila!, who begins to sound off again but Moqtada al-Sadr. Basra then is lost by the British, a campaign to push Sunnis totally out of Shia-controlled area accelerates, etc.

Now the surge has helped turn Sunni tribes against al Qaeda,

That.is.true.

It "helped".

"That.is.true."

Actually, it's not, Matthew, as Kevin documents.

"It 'helped'."

Not even remotely. The Anbar events would have played out exactly as they have regardless of "the Surge." There is zero evidence that "the Surge" had any impact at all on anything in Anbar.

The withdrawl of American troops from Anbar last fall immediately preceded the Anbar Awakening, illustrating the symbiotic relationship between American and al Qaeda in Iraq. Once the tribes saw American soldiers were leaving, they no longer had a need for al Qaeda.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Anbar_Troops_Moved_To_Baghdad_999.html

One of your better analyses, Kevin. There are umpteen variables involved in the kaleidoscope of Iraqi current events. The point is that we broke Humpty Dumpty and set off a death spiral; no foreign occupier can put the cracked egg back together. The sooner that we accept this and forget the idea of intervening in still more countries, the better for our country and our grandchildren.